Park-Street Pulpit: 



SERMONS 



PREACHED BY 



WILLIAM H. H. MURRAY. 




boston : 
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 

(late TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.) 
I87I. 



f^V .... ^ fi 



%5P 



3 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, 

By JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO., 

In the OiHce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



Boston : 
Stereotyped and Printed by Rand, A very, «Sr* Co. 



OOI^TENTS. 



Subject. — The Duty of improving the Means of Grace . 
"Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God." — 
Heb. xii. 15. 



Subject. — God's Feelings toward Man . 

" But when he was a great way off his father saw him, and had 

compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him." — 

Luke XV. 20, 

Topic. — Christian Faith : its Nature and Efficiency . 

" In the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried. If 
any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He tliat believeth 
on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his heart shall flow 
rivers of living water." — John vii. 37, 38. 

Subject.— Household Religion; or. The Religious Education 
OF Children 

"Peace be to this house." — Luke x. 5. 



Subject. — Positiveness of Belief: its Need and Efficiency . 81 
" That we be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with 
every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning crafti- 
ness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive." — Ephes. iv. 14. 

Subject. — Church-Membership : what constitutes Fitness for 
it? and when should it be entered UPOJ!^? . . . .101 

" Then they that gladly received his word were baptized; and the same 
day there were added unto them at>out threp thousand souls." — 
Acts ii. 41. 



CONTENTS. 



Subject.— The Relation of Sanctification to the Will . . 122 
" Work out your own salvatiou with fear and trembling." — Phil. ii. 12. 

Subject. — CHPasT the Deliverer 139 

" Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free ; 
and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage." — Gal. v. 1. 

Subject.— Divine Justice 158 

*• Justice and judgment are the habitation of Thy throne." — Ps. Ixxxix. 14. 

Subject. — The Judicial Element in Human Nature and Prac- 
tice 179 

'•'And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books 
were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of 
life; and the dead were judged out of those things which were writ- 
ten in the books, according to their works." — Rev. xx. 12. 

Subject. — Death a Gain . . ^ . , 197 

"To die is gain." — Phil. i. 21. 

Subject. — Wickedness of the Heart 216 

" The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked : who 
can know it ? " — Jer. xvii. 9. 

Subject. — Resistance OF Evil 235 

" Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the Devil, and he will flee 
from you." — James iv. 7. 

Subject. — Living for God's Glory 251 

" Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the 
glory of God." — 1 Cor. x. 31. 

Subject. —Ministerial Vacations : their Necessity and Value, 267 

" Let him that is taught in the Word communicate unto him that teacheth 
in all good things." — Gal. vi. 6. 



Topic — Personal Relation OF Christians to Christ . . .287 
" Christ in you, the hope of glory." — Col. i. 27. 



CONTENTS. 



Subject. — Death a Gain 
"To die is gain."— Phil. i. 21. 



Topic — Business-Life: its Uses and Dangers , 
"Xot slothful in business." — Rom. xii. 11. 



Subject. — Value of Personal Acquaintance and Contact 
VriTH THE Vicious as the :jieans for their Reformation 

"But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, 
Why do ye eat and diink with publicans and sinners ? " — Luke v. 30. 



Topic — Love the Source of Obedience 

" If a man love Me, he will keep My words." — John xiv. ! 



SABBATH MOSJflJfG, MABCH 5, 1871. 



SERMON. 



SUBJ£CT.-THE DUTY OF IMPROVING THE MEANS OF GRACE. 

"LOOKXN-G DILIGEXTLT, LEST AXY MAX FAIL OF THE GRACE OF GOD." 

Heb. xii. 15. 

THIS passage, in its original application, refers es- 
pecially to tlie converted, bnt may with eqnal 
clearness and pungency be addressed to all who stand 
in moral relations to God. I shall consider it in 
its widest significance, and make it a basis and start- 
ing-point, from which I shall lu^ge upon all of you, 
and especially such of you as have not as yet a hope in 
Christ, the duty of leaving nothing undone whereby 
the hope may be obtained. I feel that many of you 
are peculiarly situated. You are in that border-land 
which hes between worldliness and spirituality, in 
doubt whether to advance or go back. You are not 
as bad as you have been, nor as good as you should 
be ; and I wish this morning to call your attention to 
certain considerations why you should not remain 
where you are. I hope to make it appear to some of 
you that 3'ou should go on until you have come to a 
full and perfect Christian state. 

1. There is a certain class of men who come to 



2 THE DUTY OF IMPROVING 

the surface, and advertise themselves in every revival 
period ; who say, " Why need I go to a prayer-meet- 
ing ? Can't I read my Bible, and feel my guilt, and 
ask for pardon, just as well at home as in the vestry 
oi' the church? The one place is just the same as the 
other." And in this way they put aside kindly-meant 
invitation and solicitude in their behalf. 

Now, I desire to say a few words to you in this con- 
gregation who belong to this class, and to that greater 
number outside of this audience to whom, in the 
providence of God, these words may come, who 
use the same excuse to stave off the Christian im- 
portunity of those who are anxious in respect to the 
welfare of your souls. Does it not seem, at times, 
queer to you, that people who are too sensible for 
you to imagine insane should be more anxious about 
your welfare .than you are yourselves ? 

Now, then, I ask you, friend, if the prayer-meet- 
ing is the same as your home, why do you refuse so 
persistently to go to it ? Why do you so dislike the 
place of confession and prayer and exhortation ? 
Why do you dodge and avoid a place which is the 
same as your home ? Why do you put ingenu- 
ity upon the rack to invent excuses for not going ? 
What is the cause of that uneasiness Avhich disturbs 
you as the prayer-meeting night draws near ? Why 
do you dishke to have your wife or mother or sister 
or friend ask if you will not go to meeting with her 
to-night ? 

My friend, do not deceive yourself; do not flat- 
ter yourself that you can deceive God's people. 



THE MEANS OF GRACE. 6 

They have all passed through the same shameful and 
bitter expeiience. The}^ all avoided the Spirit once, 
and strove to stop their ears to the invitation of peace, 
as you are now doing. They all resisted the means 
of grace, and came out of the power and dominion of 
sin tardily, and only as pushed along by the strong- 
handed mercy of Christ. We all know your feelings, 
therefore ; for they have been our own. We know, 
for our eyes have been opened so that we see, the 
cause and motive of your disinclination. You do not 
desire to go to the prayer-meeting, because it is a 
prayer-meeting. You know and feel that there is a 
difference between that room of prayer and your 
own house, and that is why you stay at your own 
house. Why not be honest (pardon me if I seem to 
rudely impeach your motives), — why not be honest, 
I repeat, and franldy say, "I dare not go to the 
prayer-meeting : the tide sets all one way there ; and, 
if 1 should put myself into it, I should be borne 
along, and compelled, as it were, to become a Chris- 
tian ; and I am not ready to become a Christian yet " ? 
I do not say that you shall go to the place of prayer ; 
I do not say that you shall be converted : you are 
master of your own movements. I would not place 
the weight of a finger upon the sceptre of your inde- 
pendence.- What the Spirit may not do, it is not for 
man to attempt ; but I do insist that you shall deal 
honestly with the Holy Ghost. You can say, " No, I 
won't be converted," if you will ; but I insist that you 
shall say it directly to his face, and in just so many 
words. 



4 THE DUTY OF IMPEOVING 

Woe unto me if I preach not the gospel so as to 
uncover all j^our excuses, so as to reveal the wicked- 
ness of the crouching molive that fears to show it- 
self, and cause every act of your mind to stand forth, 
perceived of yourself and others, in the clear light 
of a deliberation intelligent and decided as it is 
wicked ! 

In further explanation and enforcement of this 
point (for some of you may not realize the reason 
and philosophy of the means of grace), I suggest, — 

2. That the mind is subject to motives. Every 
decision has a parental cause back of it. Every res- 
olution is in the line of sequence. Something has 
preceded. It had a bulbous state before it flowered 
out. The mind decides from the same reason that 
a stone mounts into the air : it is impelled upward 
to the point of decision by a power acting under- 
neath it. No man becomes a Christian, no person 
changes the order of his life for the better, because 
compelled by the arbitrary exercise of God's power. 
God deals with souls very like as he deals with flow- 
ers. He puts a pressure but no violence upon them. 
His touch is the touch of gentleness. He comes to 
a tree, and sifts his dews all over it. He does thiri 
night after night, until every bud is moist, and a half 
disposition to yield has come to the hard edges of the 
outer leaves. Then come the rays of the sun with 
theirsweet enticements, — aloverfor every bud, — and 
they say, each to his own, '' Open unto me, my be- 
loved, my undeflled." And after a little time of delay, 
as if every flower would be true to the modesty of 



THE MEANS OF GRACE. 5 

Nature, they all open ; and the orchard is bright with 
the beauty of their faces, and rich with the fragrance 
of their breath. And it is just so in the kingdom of 
grace. While God puts no violence, he does put a 
pressure upon its subjects, strong as it is sweet. We 
are not compelled, we are inclined ; we are not 
dragged, we are enticed ; we are not driven, we 
are persuaded; and there are times and places 
when and where these gracious influences are felt 
more strongly than at others. There is a spot on my 
farm — a hillside, with a southern exposure — where I 
shall plant my orchard and my berries and my flow- 
ers, because the sun greets it with its earliest ray, and 
lights it with its retiring beam. And I hope some 
day to sit in my porch, and ha\^e the mingling per- 
fumes of all that slope borne up on the current of 
the warm south to my nostrils. And so in the wide 
ranges of God's husbandry, where are soils and cli 
mate for every possible virtue, there are favorable 
localities and southern exposures to the Spirit, where 
every thing blossoms earliest in youth, and where the 
Indian summer of Christian experience lingers long- 
est in the changeful atmosphere. And this law is no 
more peculiar to the realm of the soul than to the 
realm of the mind. Why should a child attend 
school ? Why build colleges ? Why collect libra- 
ries ? AY hy group the paintings and models of the 
great artists of the Avorld ? Why cannot your child 
be as well taught, why cannot his judgment in mat- 
ters of art become as discriminating, his taste as 
refined, at home, as in these places so ostentatiously 



6 THE DUTY OF IMPROVING 

set apart for his service ? Because, I respond (and 
you all anticipate the answer), — because a man is 
influenced by his surroundings. There is an influ- 
ence in association, an inspiration in occasion, a 
power obtained by the collocation and concentration 
of means and agencies, which the dullest in appre- 
hension must see and acknowledge. The college is 
dedicated to learning ; its walls were reared in the 
interest of culture ; its associations are all classic ; 
and the atmosphere of the place, as we say, is 
literary. These things are not without their influ- 
ence upon the student's mind. They quicken and 
stimulate his ambition ; they sustain his noblest 
aspiration ; and in after-j'ears, as he looks backward 
to his college-days, he discovers that more potent and 
blessed upon him than all the positive accretions of 
knowledge was this silent, subtile influence born 
of the surroundings and spirit of the place. 

So it is, friends, v/ith the sanctuary and room of 
prayer. You who would put 3^ourselves in the best 
position for spiritual development, make your regular 
visitations to each ; if you would have knowledge of 
your sins, go where that knowledge is imparted ; if 
your conscience is dead and inoperant, go where it 
may be brought in connection with the Spirit, and 
shocked into life ; if you are hardened in your unbe- 
lief, and would be melted, go where tears are flowing, 
and the choked and tremulous voice of confession is 
heard : in short, if you desire to be saved, go where 
salvation is being proclaimed and experienced. 

You are walking in darkness : let the hand of a 



THE MEANS OF GEACE. 7 

friend lead you to some room that is full of light. 
You are like a man smitten with leprosy : it has 
full possession of you ; it has attacked the nerves, 
and taken away your sense of feeling ; it has har- 
dened the organ of sight, so that you are blind. You 
neither feel nor see in what wretchedness and loath- 
someness you stand ; and you will not believe such 
as tell you, with tears in their eyes, weeping because 
of the wretched plight you are in, how terrible is 
your condition. Go, then, to Him, at the touch of 
whose finger the scales shall fall from your eyes, and 
you shall see how vile you are ; and not alone that, 
but, looking again, see your vileness pass away, and 
you yourself — too happy to laugh, your joy finding 
expression in your tears — feel that you are standing 
a new man in Christ Jesus. 

I desire all of you to whom I am a religious 
teacher and adviser to understand that the matter of 
personal goodness is not one of mere preference, — 
something you can accept or reject, as you please. 
There is a right and a wrong to it. Now, I feel 
that all of you desire, on the whole, to do what 
is right. The Spirit of enlightenment, the Spirit of 
quickening, has been with you ; and you are not 
insensible to obligation. It has not had its perfect 
work in you ; for you have resisted it in part, and do 
still resist. But, so far as you have permitted, it has 
been with and in you, and kept you from fatal indif- 
ference. You have been like the briers and brambles 
in spring-time, whose nature it is to go out in the 
way of thorns, and yet from which God, through sun 



8 THE DUTY OF IMPROVING 

and shower, elicits sweetness. You liave been shone 
apon of his love ; you have been nourished by the 
dews of his grace ; and a certain floral state and fra- 
grance have come to you, in spite of 3^ourselves as it 
were. And it should be a matter of keen gratitude 
with you, as it is of rejoicing to us all, that he has 
not left 3^ou to yourselves, but enticed you by a 
sweet persistency toward goodness. He has blessed 
you, as he often does all his children, beyond what 
they expected, — beyond what they consciously de- 
sired. 

Now, I speak to you as those who are able to real- 
ize an obligation; and I say (and I think that you 
all will agree with me) that you have no right to 
remain spiritually vdiere you are, if any advance is 
possible to you. If you would be a better father or 
mother, or wife or husband, or brother or sister, or 
friend, by becoming a Christian, then you ought to be- 
come such to-day. The question of experience and 
conduct is not one that is important to you alone. 
It affects eyery one whom you affect, ■ — all your 
clerks, your relatives, your acquaintances, and com- 
munity at large. The character of a man's life vif- 
fects thousands beside himself. Wickedness cannot 
be kept inside a man's own heart. You might as 
well expect a poisonous flower to keep its poison to 
itself, when the wind goes over it and wafts its dead- 
ly perfume abroad, as to expect to keep the evil 
thought, and wicked imagination, and inordinate de- 
sire, to yourself. There is a social and moral atmos- 
phere ; and men breathe of your impurity, and are 



THE MEANS OF GRACE. 9 

endangered by it. My voice, therefore., only gives 
utterance to the solemn protest of universal purity 
against your past and present conduct, ^\hen I urge 
you to become better men and purer women. The 
embodied virtue of the world speaks through me, 
exhorting and entreating you to rectify your nature 
and your courses. I speak not alone for the adults : 
I speak for those who sleep in cradles to-day, who 
are to grow up and be influenced by the evil in the 
world, of which jour imperfection and sinfulness 
compose a part. Steep and flinty enough by Nature's 
dire appointment v/ill be the path their tender feet 
must tread : place not a pebble, plant not a thorn, in 
their path. If we are anxious for your conversion, 
it is because we are interested in it as sharers of its 
influence. If we labor so strenuously to lift you, it 
is, in part, because we feel, that, without you, we 
ourselves cannot so rapidly mount. 

I dare to say that few of you are indifferent to 
your spiritual condition. You are thoughtful, solemn- 
ly so : for the Spirit of God has descended upon you as 
winds come down upon a forest ; and as the trees are 
swayed, so you are moved and agitated in your minds. 
And you can truly say, " I am thinking upon this 
matter a great deal. I think of it every hour in the 
day ; yes, and at night too : when my family think I 
am sleeping, I lie awake, pondering my spiritual con- 
dition." I understand all this, friends ; and jet I say 
frankly to jou, that in this lies your greatest peril. I 
mistrust this prolonged deliberation. My fear is (and 
I ask you to judge if it be groundless), — mj fear is. 



10 THE DUTY OF IMPROVING 

that joii will do notliing but think. Thinking will 
never save jou ; it will never fulfil the gospel re- 
quu^ement ; it will never make your peace with 
Jesus ; it does not commit you to that step which is 
alone satisfactory to God, and which you must take 
01 ever his peace aylLI be shed abroad in your hearts. 
You can bury a seed so deeply in the earth, 3^ou 
can retain it there so long, that it shall decay. The 
germinal principle in it shall be extinguished, and no 
life ever come out of it. And so a resolution, no 
matter how noble, no matter how promising, can be 
detained so long in the mind as to die out, and never 
develop into an act ; and I fear that this sad exj)e- 
rience will be yours. There is a time for debate ; a 
time when to act would be only to blunder ignorantly : 
but, on the other hand, there is a time, there are 
seasons, in every one's life, when to debate longer is to 
sin, — a moment when action alone, prompt and de- 
cided action, meets the emergency, and fulfils obliga- 
tion. Do you understand this, friends? Does this 
analysis come with the force of conviction to you ? 
Does something within you say, " That's my case " ? 
If so, how, then, can you delay ? how hesitate ? If 
so, you are at the very door of opportunity : jou 
have but to open it ; you have but to take one step, 
and 3'ou stand in 3'our Father's presence, with the 
light of his face shining upon 3'ou, and his love cover- 
ing your transgi essions like a mantle. Would that 
I might have a more impressive utterance than the 
feebleness and coldness of uninspired speech I Would 
that for one moment, yea, even now and here, to-day, 



TflE MEANS OF GRACE. 11 

the " gift of tongues" might be vouchsafed to me, 
that through my lips might come to jou the perfect 
expression of the highest ^Yisclom ! Then should you 
be exhorted ; then should there be a propulsion to 
my words that should push you on ; then should it 
seem, to you who hesitate, no longer the voice of 
man, but in very truth the voice of God. Then 
should mercy stand revealed before you, — not that 
mercy which is known of men, and whose home is on 
the earth, but that sweet, that tender, that sublime 
expression of Jehovah known to the redeemed and 
pardoned, whose dwelling-place is heaven, and whose 
home is in the bosom of God ; and you should see it 
standing here, lacking not voice of warning, lacking 
not gesture of entreaty, saying unto you in tones to 
thrill and melt 3'our hearts, " Though your sins be -as 
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they 
be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." 

I know that now and then, when every other ex- 
cuse fails him ; v/hen Satan can push forward no 
other defence to a man's wickedness, — as the last 
desperate resort against the Spirit, he concentrates the 
energies of the mind in one bald expression of un- 
loelief and obstinacy ; and the man says in his heart, 
" It isn't true. The preacher is mistaken. I am in 
no such peril as he describes, do what I may. God 
is too (jood to condemn me." 

I\Iy friends, palsied forever be my tongue in that 
hour when it shall cease to magnify the goodness of 
God! J\ly conception of him, like a sun full-orbed 
and resplendent, rides forever, the heaven of my hope ; 



12 THE DUTY OF IMPROVING 

and whether in gladness, or dimmed with the moist- 
ure of many tears, I lift my eyes upward, the sky is 
bright with the outshining of his love. Neither in 
father nor mother, neither in friend nor lover, can man 
find a measure for his benevolence. Never may you 
find a charity, never a patience, never a compassion, 
like to his. But this makes not your error the less, 
nor your conclusion less wrong and perilous. Listen, 
then, while I strive to make this appear to you. 

1. In one sense, God does not condemn you ; 
you condemn yourself. Not by the frown of his 
face shall you be exiled from heaven and him, vvhich 
terms are one : your own condition shall banish you ; 
your own consciousness of unfitness shall banish 
you. Though you stood in the streets of heaven, yet 
should you say, " This place is not for me ; my com- 
panions are not here ; " and, covering your face with 
the mantle of your remorse, you would fly from the 
place and companionship you did not deserve, neither 
were fitted to enjoy. The wretch who stands at 
night on the corner of your street, clothed in rags, 
and every rag defiled v/ith dirt, with bloated face and 
bloodshot eyes, and a tongue familiar with oaths, is 
not less fitted for the light and refinement and purity 
of your parlors than you are — standing in your sins, 
clothed in the garments of your unrighteousness, 
your minds corrupted with the outgoing of many 
unseemly imaginations, your habits all earthly — for 
the clear light of heaven and the company of the 
blessed. Never shall you know until that hour, 
noted chiefly for the two revelations it shall make, — 



THE MEANS OF GRACE. 13 

one of the purity of God, the other the impurity of 
man, — never until you shall stand, I say, in that pure 
light which forbids all illusions, and compels by its 
clearness a full knowledge of j^ourself, willj^ou know 
how wicked you are. Then shall you indeed see 
your unfitness ; then will you realize, as no words 
of mine can make you, the need of the new birth. 
The silence of God will be the voice of your con- 
demnation, and your own consciousness indorse, even 
with groanings, the righteousness of the decree. 

But, Avere this not so, still are j^ou in the wrong. 
The Adversary perverts your theology, that he may 
still hold you as his captive ; for you surely cannot 
deny that God is ruler over a kingdom filled with 
two classes of subjects, — the good and the bad, the 
obedient and the disobedient. In this world, as you 
know, wickedness and wicked men exist: and hence 
law is a necessity, and, in order that it may protect 
the good, it must be enforced ; for law unenforced 
is both a standing dishonor to the law-making power 
and a laughing-stock to the wicked. And God must 
therefore enforce his laws against every transgressor 
of them; and the impartial enforcement of the ]a'vv 
becomes the highest evidence of his goodness. Go 
down to one of your city courts and test this reason- 
ing. You are interested in this matter ; for you are 
a citizen here, and your own life and property are at 
stake. In one court-room you find a weak man as a 
judge, — not a base judge, perhaps ; not one who will 
pocket a bribe ; but one in whom there is no keen 
sense of justice, no judicial uprightness, no proper 



14 THE DUTY OF IMPEOYING 

realization of his responsibility. The case before the 
court is one of your own bringing. A man has 
broken into your store, and robbed jou ; or into your 
house, and violated your wife ; and the whole com- 
munity has risen up in arms against the man. A 
feeling of insecurity has spread all over the city ; and 
men say as they meet in the street, " Who of us is 
safe ? There was a time once in this city when a man 
could leave his family under the protection of the pub- 
lic law, and journey off, and do his business abroad, 
feeling that his wife and children were secure ; but now 
it seems that none of us are secure. What a civiliza- 
tion is this, when a man must needs be at home every 
night, pistol in hand, to defend his own dwelling ! " 
And they say, " This villain must be made an example 
of, or law will be only a name here, and a by-word 
among thieves." But the judge is one of your ten- 
der, merciful, good men ; too kind-hearted to punish 
any one, — just such a being as some of your teachers 
picture God to be. And he says, " I can't punish this 
man : I love him. I dare say he will repent if I let 
him go." And so he bids the sheriff unclasp the 
handcuffs, and, turns the man loose upon society 
again. Friends, vvdiat would you say of such a judge ? 
I am not talking theology to you ; 1 am not striving 
to convert you to any set of doctrines : I am talking 
common sense ; I am getting you down to the very 
roots of the principle of public justice ; and I ask you, 
V/hat would you Boston men say of such a judge ? 
Would you call him a ^ood judge? — a judge to be 
honored ? — a judge to be loved, and kept in office ? 



THE MEANS OF GRACE. 



15 



No! You would say, " Tins is a wicked judge : lie 
is worse than the criminal he wickedly pardoned. If 
he had been a good judge, he would have inter- 
preted the law to the man^ condemnation and our 
safety. His goodness would have at least made him 
just. Away with him from the bench he disgraces, 
and the city, every home in which he has imper- 
iUed ! " 

My friends, are goodness and justice one thing 
above, and another below, the sky ? or are they the 
same in every world and order of beings throughout 
the universe of God ? You sp.y, '' They are one 
and the same everywhere and unto all." Then I 
say, in accordance with your own rendering, the very 
goodness of God will impel him to execute his law 
against every transgressor, unless some other provis- 
ion than such as the principles of public justice 
provide shall be made in the criminal's behalf. A 
provision has been made, blessed be God ! The terms 
and conditions thereof I have presented to you out 
of the Scriptures before, and do present them to-day, 
which you have rejected, and do now, as I understand 
you, reject ; and these, being rejected, leave you as 
though no provision had ever been made. \yhere, 
then, do you stand? You stand in the position of trans- 
gressors before the law, unprotected by any provision 
of mercy, Avith the just and the good of all ages and 
of every world indignant at you on account of 3'our 
crime ; without God, and without hope in the world. 
Your present is dark with forebodings, as a landscape 
upon which has fallen the shadow of coming storm ; 



16 THE DUTY OF IMPROVING 

and out of the future comes the muttering of con- 
cealed but approaching thunder. Fly, then, imjteni- 
tent man, before the night of death comes and the 
storm of judgment breaivs above you ! ■ — fly to the 
Rock that is higher than thou ! 

The death of Christ, I charge you to remember, 
and to believe none who say otherwise, as you value 
your soul, — the death of Christ was the extreme sug- 
gestion of infinite mercy, whereby judgment might 
not be pronounced upon the criminal, and the honor 
of the law and the security of the universe at the 
same time be sustained. There is no unrevealed foun- 
tains, friends, lying back of Calvary, jet to be opened, 
in which the guilty may wash and be cleansed. 
There is no rock out of which waters may gush, 
from which creatures dying of thirst ma}^ drink, save 
that which was smitten by a greater than Moses. 
There is no other name in heaven, or among men, 
whereby you can be saved, than the name (is there 
no note of music that I can borrow in which to 
breathe this name ? — a name that should have melody 
for its expression, and the harmony of heaven for its 
praise) — the name of my Redeemer and my Lord. 
Come, then, to God, with this name upon 3^our lips. 
Come in your hesitation, come in your trembling, 
come in your guilt, come even in your despair, and 
ask freely ; for it is written, " Whatsoever ye shall 
ask of the Father in my name, that will he give unto 
you." 

And now, friends and strangers, as I draw to the 



THE MEANS OF GRACE. 17 

conclusion, I strive after some parting utterance that 
shall fitly express the solemnity of this hour. I have 
striven to speak with the simplicity and directness 
of a man who realizes the grave consequences of 
human conduct. Ahead of us all is the future ; and 
to us, who are gifted with immortality, it is an endless 
future. I know that time will fail ; that the days 
will die, and have an end ; that the earth wdll cease 
its revolutions ; and the seasons, because of their age, 
expire : but we shall not fail, and the souls that are 
within us will not cease to live. The earth on which 
we are, and the heavens above us, will pass ; but we 
shall not pass. Even the bodies we inhabit will re- 
turn to their native elements ; ashes shall be mingled 
with ashes, and dust with dust : but we, like birds 
that fly upward and abroad when the bars of their 
cages part, shall stand unharmed when our bodies 
dissolve, and our existence will be continual. Sitting 
as you are under the shadow of that eternity which 
looms in vast projection above your heads, feeling as 
I do that some of you may be near your graves and 
the supreme crisis of your lives, I ask you to tell me 
what is your spiritual position. Upon what are you 
settled ? What hope have you to give strength and 
consolation in your dying hour ? I press you with 
no arguments ; I make no appeal. Faculties and 
powers are yours suf&cient for the investigation, ample 
for decision. If you have not decided ; if you still 
linger in a state of hesitation, of dangerous lethargy, 
or wicked indifference, — I do my duty in warning you 



18 THE DUTY OF IMPEOVING 

against further delay. Avoid it as your deadliest foe* 
Your consciences speak through my voice, and re- 
echo my admonition. Sink the line of investigation 
into the waters to-day. Touch bottom somewhere. 
Drift no longer on an unsounded current down which 
so many before you have floated to ruin, and the 
shores of which are Hned with the upheaved frag- 
ments of many and recent wrecks. 

The day has brought you a new and beautiful 
possibilit}^ It has delivered you from your business 
and your daily cares. It has graciously separated 
you from those worldly pursuits which forbid the 
leisure needed for solemn thought. It has intro- 
duced 3^ou to scenes peculiarly favorable to rehgious 
reflection. Its memories and its emotions throng to 
your aid. Heaven itself, descending in the privileges 
of this closing moment, opens its gates for your en- 
trance ; and the solicitude of its saints and its angels, 
yes, and the desire of the Saviour himself, speaking 
through my lips, sends out the solemn interrogation, 
"Will you enter?'' 

Suspend your answer until you hear me. By that 
past behind you, by its sacred memories, by the 
graves where your pious ancestry sleep, by the re- 
membrance of faces now passed into glory, by the 
bitter recollections of your sins from which you can 
never deliver yourselves, by the brevity of your lives 
hastening to their close, by your fear of death, by 
your hope of heaven, and by whatever other invoca- 
tion unknown to me, and which, by being uttered, 



THE MEANS OF GRACE. 19 

might influence you for good, I entreat you, one and 
all, to drop your rebellion against God, and be at 
peace with him. The moment is heavy with the 
burden of yor.r decision. Have you decided ? If so, 
how ? 



SABBATH MORjYLN-G, MARCH 12, 1871. 



SERMOK 



SUBJECT.- GOD'S FEELINGS TOWARD MAi.. 
" But when he was a great way off his father saw him, 

AND had compassion, AND KAN, AND FELL ON HIS NECK, AND KISSED 

HIM." — Luke XV. 20. 

THE parable from which the text is selected has 
as one of its objects to show the feelings of 
God toAvard men, and especially when they come in 
penitence to him. It is a very remarkable passage ; 
perhaps, all things considered, the most remarkable 
in the wdiole Bible. It seems incredible that any one 
can read it and not be moved. How any impenitent 
person can read it, and remain impenitent, is a marvel. 
How can a man go on sinning against snch a Being 
as Christ in this passage teaches that God is ? What 
a thing sin mnst be if it can harden the heart against 
so sweet a picture of the divine character as is spread 
before us in this chapter ! 

In application of the truths taught in this parable, 
I observe, — 

1. That it presents the sinner in several states of 
feeling ; the first of which is, wicked uneasiness under 
divine restraint. 



GOD'S FEELINGS TOWARD MAN. 21 

You must follow the narrative on carefully, step by 
step, you must pause and examine every group in 
this Avonclerful picture of human experience, if you 
would feel the full impression produced by the 
whole. 

Here, in the first place, is a young man blessed 
with the kindest of fathers and the best of homes. 
Every thing that ambition could desire is his. 
Wealth serves him, and love ministers unto his every 
want. In respect to the present, his cup runneth 
over ; touching the future, his prospects are all bright : 
still he is uneasy. Some people never can be satis- 
fied. He has freedom ; but he desires license. The 
bad elements of his nature have gained the ascend- 
ency. He wearies of home. It is too well-ordered, 
too pure. He chafes under its salutary control. 
Sinful cravings make him heady. He determines to 
break away from his home. Humored to the last, 
the property is divided, — a full half put into his 
hands ; and, with his heart steeled against every 
motive of honor, gratitude, and affection, heedless 
of counsel, and deaf to entreaty, he casts moral 
restraint to the winds, and plunges into sinful indul- 
gence. 

There, friends, you have the first picture, — the 
exact portrait of scores all about us. Society is full 
of men impatient of all moral restraint, indifferent 
to duty, dead in conscience. In this state of mind 
and heart is embedded the germ of all possible wick- 
edness. A person who deems moral obligation tyr- 
anny, who practically ignores every injunction of 



22 GOD'S FEELINGS TOWARD MAN. 

the ten commandments so far as he dares, who stops 
at nothing but the fear of punishment, who takes 
counsel only with the lower and animal instincts of 
his nature, is a person already far along the road to 
ruin. Such a disposition is the natural soil of 
poisons. Nothing fragrant, nothing fruitful of good, 
will ever come out of ifc. This city is full to-day of 
just such young men. They are squandering their 
character as a spendthrift does money, — throwing it 
av^^ay. They are racing down to ruin : they vie with 
each other in their attempts to outdo one another in 
wickedness. They seem proud of their folly. They 
have literally left their father's house, and abide with 
strangers. They are careless of everything that is 
truly worthy in life, or noble in destiny. They con- 
vert, by their evil conduct, the blessing of time into a 
curse. They arise in the morning worse than when 
they lay down at night ; they lie down at night 
worse than when they arose in the morning. 

2. The second picture presented in the parable is 
of a man given over to sin. Sin is no longer an im- 
agination, but an experience. He no longer dreams 
of it : he lives in it. His mouth is filled with the 
water of bitterness, and he loves the taste. His 
thoughts, his conduct, his impulses, his very hopes, 
are all bad. He has passed beyond the limit of ordi- 
nary morality, — even along its lowest level. Crime 
now is not the exception, but the very law, of his life. 
Day and night are one prolonged occasion of license. 
There is no let-up to his wickedness. His indulgence 
is unlimited and constant. This is no fancy picture : 



GOD'S FEELI^'GS TOWARD MAX. 23 

sucli men — pardon me, such creatures — exist. 
They are here in your city, and in every city in the 
woi'kl. Your jails are full of them, and 3'our streets 
are fuller than your jails. 

3. The third picture outlined in the parable is of 
a somewhat different character. The colors have 
changed slightly. They are still black, but less set. 
The oil is drying, and the surface becoming less coarse. 
We now behold a man dissatisfied Tvith his evil 
coitrses. He sickens at his own sin. It no longer 
flowers in beautiful colors. The leaves have fallen, 
and the thorns pierce him. His hands bleed. The pain 
of his suffering causes him to reflect. Out of the 
very ruins of his pleasure springs the germ of a better 
life. His eyes at last are open. They stand wide 
apart with horror at himself and his surroundings. 
He is as one who goes to sleep in a palace, and wakes 
in a miserable garret. The young spendthrift, by a 
swift declension, has reached the bottom of the hill. 
Yesterday he had all he could desire : to-day he 
stands stripped of every thing, — without a home, 
without money, without friends, without clothes, with- 
otit food. He is starving. What shall he do ? 

I never read this parable without pausing at just 
this point in the story. Here is the climax and the 
crisis. When a man or woman stands in this position, 
there are but two possible results, — reformation, or 
despair. When a person has gone down, and gone 
down, until he can go no farther unless he goes to total 
wreck ; when by bitter experience he has learned that 
the fruit of sin is death ; when the very violence of his 



24 GOD'S FEELINGS TOWARD. MAN. 

fall has shocked him into thoughtfulness, and he sees 
what he has missed, and upon ths brink of what a 
fearful gulf he stands, — then I say he has reached the 
critical moment of his life. At just such a point in 
experience this young man in the parable is pictured 
to us as standing. He was but the wreck of his former 
self. The beauty and strength of his body were 
gone. Indulgence had drained the very vigor out of 
his blood. His property was all squandered : not a 
dollar was left. His provisions were exhausted ; but 
his wants remained. Even wretchedness must eat, or 
die. The very menials in his father's establishment 
were rich in comparison to him. They at least were 
fed and clothed ; while he was at the point of starva- 
tion, and destitute of even the necessities of life. 
Something must be done, and quickly too ; but what ? 

How many men and women in this city are stand- 
ing to-day in just this position ! — although with them 
it is their souls, and not their bodies, that suffer and 
are in want. For months and years they have been 
living a career of sin. Morally they are undone. While 
they have been wading in the stream, the current has 
been deepening and gathering strength, until they can 
with difficulty keep their feet. They feel that they 
cannot stand much longer. The swell of their last 
temptation nearly lifted them from the bottom. They 
must get to the shore, or be swept away. 

Friend, if 3'ou know or conceive of any one in all 
the list of 3^0 ur acquaintances in such a position, go 
to him. Go to him at once. Now is your time. Ah, 
how your presence will help him ! How the touch 



GOD'S FEELINGS TOWAED MAN. 25 

of your hand will give him new hope ! I know a 
man who came nigh to drowning once. He was boat- 
ing it, and snapped his paddle in the rapids, and was 
shot out of his boat like a bolt. He struggled and 
fought in that hell of water and foam as only a man 
will who has been trained to danger, and has a wife 
and five children to make life sweet. But what is 
man in the grasp of the elements ? His arms began 
to fail him, and his heart to sink. The feeling of hope- 
lessness was entering into him, and he was even say- 
ing to liimself, " I must die I " when from far up the 
flight of quivering water, cutting through their roar 
like a knife, came the voice of a comrade, saying, in 
half whoop, half cry, '' Steady, Dick ! hold up a min- 
ute more ! " and in an instant a canoe, borne like a 
feather on the gale, swept down, dipped as it passed 
him, and a. paddle, as it dipped, swept him into the 
boat. He was saved ! — and the man declares, to thi& 
day, that it was nothing under heaven but his com- 
rade's whoop that saved him. And so in the realm 
of the spirit : it is astonishing how httle a thing at 
times will save a man. A grasp of the hand, a smile, 
a word even, is often enough in God's hand to change 
the entire course of life, to save a soul from death. 
So I say to you, my people, if any of you know of 
any person who is in danger, who is strugghng amid 
the rapids of temptation, and in peril of being swept 
down, now is your time to save him. Make an at- 
tempt, at least, to rescue him. Tell him not to give 
up. Tell him to make one more effort. Tell him 
that there is hope for him yet. Put your arms around 

2 



26 GOD'S FEELINGS TOWARD MAN. 

him, and give him the loan of j'our strength. Never 
give a man up morally. Why, flowers will grow even 
in the soil of the grave ; and so, out of the very 
dust and corruption of a man's nature, God can cause 
the beauty of holiness to appear. I would never give 
a man up, I say ; no, not until his latest breath had 
come and gone, and his eye become set forever ; and, 
even as he died, I would sink my ear to his stiffening 
lips to catch some whispered prayer, and search his 
closing eyes for some gleam that should tell me, that, 
amid the gathering shadows of death, the hght of a 
great hope had unexpectedly flashed its glory upon 
him. 

But to return. We next see the young man under 
strong conviction of sin. He sees his faults and his 
folly. His eyes are, at last, open to the wretchedness 
of his condition. As he soberly considers his circum- 
stances and his prospects, as the past rises up in re- 
view before him, he is pierced to the heart. I say, 
soherly considers them. When a sinner begins to 
think, he is half saved ; for reflection is the mother 
of conviction, and what Satan most hates. If he can 
only amuse, onl}^ divert, only distract the mind, so 
that it shall have no season to consider, to analyze, — 
no opportunity to tliinh^ — he is content. One of the 
prime elements of sin is heedlessness, — a rash and 
reckless, inattention to consequences. Take the 
young men in this city who are rushing to ruin, 
squandering the forces of body and brain in riotous 
courses. How thoughtless they are ! How they sj^in 
around the circle of wild and wdcked indulgence of 



GOD'S FEELINGS TOWARD MAN. 27 

their passions and their appetites, seeking and finding 
in moral giddiness temporary escape from the re- 
proaches of conscience, whose voice shall yet be heard 
in tones of thunder ! Here is a man convicted of his 
need of Christ, and yet unwilling to become a Chris- 
tian ; and so, he buries himself in business, and multi- 
plies his engagements, and seeks to relieve himself 
from the very feelings which God has given him to be 
a blessmg to his soul. How can men play so directly 
into the hands of the Adversary to both their present 
and eternal hurt ? Speaking against him, speaking in 
behalf of your highest interests, speaking along the 
line of experience and knowledge, friends, I say to 
every one of you who are doing such things, who are 
transgressing any law, who are living in daily neglect 
of duty, who are flying from the mercy of God as if 
it were your foe, Stop and thinh: where will your 
present course land you ? Forecast the future : into 
what harbor will jom come at last, when you have 
finished your voyage ? Why is not this the day for 
you to break away from evil, or take a new and 
stronger stand in goodness? Why is not this the 
very hour for you to say, in the language of the con- 
victed prodigal, " I will arise, and go to my father's 
house " ? 

This determination sprang, as you all see, from a 
supreme dissatisfaction with his condition. . He was 
wretchedly off, and he felt it. Every one of you who 
are acting against the will of God, if you would only 
stop and think for a moment, would feel the same 
way ; for God has made yoii too noble to be base 



28 GOD'S FEELINGS TOWARD MAN. 

without a struggle. I take you to witness, judging 
by your own experience, that Heaven does not surren- 
der you without an effort : your soul does not go to its 
death willingly, but is dragged, resisting, and crying 
out against the cruel forces that compel it. Do some- 
thing wrong, commit some crime, and mark the 
result. What remorse you have ! How the con- 
sciousness of your sin gnaws away at your peace ! 
How the fear of exposure torments you ! I tell you, 
" the way of the transgressor is hard." Some people 
talk as if men and women go devil-ward with easy 
rapidity. Now and then, one does. Now and then, a 
man swoops toward destruction, as an eagle, stricken 
far up in the sky by a flying bullet, swoops with set 
wings downward until it is dashed upon the resound- 
ing earth. But the number of such is small. The 
majority of those who are wicked have become such 
by degrees. Their declension was gradual and inter- 
mittent. Between their first and second positive acts 
of transgression there was a pause and a struggle. 
One must sin a great while before he is insensible to 
right conduct. The soul is not morally petrified in a 
day. 

No wonder, then, that when the young man " came 
to himself," when he stopped to think, when he be- 
gan to reflect on his past and present condition, and 
the causes that wrought the awful change, his soul 
was filled with regret. No wonder that a powerful 
conviction took hold of him ; that his eyes were 
opened, and he saw his foU}^ and his sinfulness. He 
made a decision. Standing there amid the swine, by 



GOD'S FEELINGS TOWARD MAN. 29 

his physical necessities brought ahuost to a level with 
them, he formed a resolution. He made up his mind : 
" I will arise," he said, " and go to my father's house, 
and sry unto him. Father, I have sinned against 
heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be 
called thy son : make me as one of thy hired servants." 

Here was genuine repentance, — a frank and full 
confession of his sinfulness. Here Avas a change of 
mind, radical and emphatic. Here, too, was humility, 
ready to accept any position, provided only that it was 
near the father's person, and subject to his care. I 
wish you all to observe how entire was the surrender 
of his former opinions, how thorough the retraction, 
how noble the determination. He was not impelled 
by the desire to be restored to favor and support. It 
was not selfishness that prompted the resolution. 
Above every other desire, apparently,, was this, — to 
get to the presence of his father, and say, " Father, I 
have sinned y It was the heavy burden of his guilt 
from which he sought release. His confession was not 
general. It would not satisfy him ; it would not ease 
his conscience to say it to the world at large : he must 
go to his father, and say to him, " Father, I have 
sinned. ''' 

Is there not some one present to-day with some sin 
on his conscience of which he repents ? Is there not 
some one here who is convinced that his life has not 
been what it should have been; who is dissatisfied 
with his present position ; whose mind has undergone 
a great change of late, and, unable to bear the pressure 
much longer by himself, feels that he must say some- 



80 GOD'S FEELINGS TOWARD MAN. 

thing to somebody ? For now and then the conscious- 
ness of sin so smites against a man, that the pain 
becomes intolerable ; and as a child relieves itself by 
crying, so he must find relief by giving vent to his 
feelings. He must unburden himself, or his heart 
would break. Half of the attractive power of the 
Roman-Catholic Church is to be found in its confes- 
sional. To it the guilty or sorrowing heart goes as 
to a refuge. Is there in all this audience some soul 
in such a position as this ? — some heart so borne down 
by the sense of its sin, so pressed upon on all sides 
by conflicting thoughts, so pierced by some keen 
shaft of conviction, that he cannot much longer hold 
his peace, but must cry out, though the shame of all 
the world comes upon him ? If there is, I tell you, 
friend, go at once to God with your confession. Tell 
it not to man ; tell it to him. Summon no human 
ear : go at once to tlie Divine Presence, and say, 
" Father, I have sinned ; make me as one of your 
hired servants ; " and, instead of being made a servant, 
thou shalt be made a son. Who of you believes 
this ? 

The Scripture goes on to say that " he arose, and 
came to his father." 

Here was repentanc-e followed by action. The act 
testified to the thought, and proved it genuine. He 
did not stop to debate : he had no right to do so. 
No one here, being convinced of his duty, has any 
right to delay its performance. If your heart, friend, 
speaking from within you, says that you ought to be- 
come a Christian, then become one. If within vou 



GOD'S FEELINGS TOWARD MAN. 31 

is one desire for a cleanlier life than you have of late 
been living, for a nearer connection with God, put 
that desire to-day into your conduct. Stamp the 
molten metal of your inclination into the form of an 
act. It is wrong of you to hesitate, to hold back, to 
halt between two opinions. To whom, I wonder, in 
this congregation, does this counsel come with the 
force of a direct application ? Is it you on my left ? 
Is it you on my right ? Or art thou the man, friend ? 
Who is it in this audience whose heart beats in re- 
sponse to the interrogation ? Who has reached that 
point in his experience at which he is ready to rise, 
and go to his father's house ? If any, I say to them, 
Arise, arise at once, and start toward home. 

We have thus far, my friends, been looking at the 
human side of the subject ; we have been studying 
and analyzing the man. Let us now look at the 
divine side ; let us, for a moment, study and observe 
the feeling and action of God. 

The most important of all questions that a man 
can ask himself is, " How does God feel toward me ? 
What is his expectation ? and how have I met it? " 
The most interesting of all interrogations to men at 
large is this : " What is the predominating sentiment 
in the bosom of God toward the race ? How does 
he feel toward man as man ? " Any thing that throws 
light upon this point, any thing in nature or revela- 
tion which draws aside the veil from the counte- 
nance of the Invisible, and enables us to behold the 
expression of his face, is invaluable. 

Now, this parable is the pearl of all the parables in 



32 GOD'S FEELINGS TOWARD MAN. 

this respect. Indeed, there is no passage in all the 
Scriptures which speaks with such minuteness of 
detail, Avith such emphasis of illustration, touching 
the feelings of God toward man, as does this. It 
removes every possible ground of conjecture. Fog 
can as well hold its own against a strong current of 
air as doubt and hesitation bear up against the wind- 
like movement of this passage. The prodigal had 
repented of his wickedness and folly. He had de- 
cided to return, and cast himself on his father's mer- 
cy. How would that father receive him ? Would 
he even grant him an audience ? His highest liope, 
his boldest prayer, was to become a servant where 
once he had lived as a prince. Would he be granted 
even that position ? What anxiety, what conflicting 
thoughts, must have agitated his mind as he jour- 
neyed homeward ! If he could only meet some one 
of his father's household ! only get some hint as to 
what would be his probable reception ! Did they 
remember him still ? Was his name ever mentioned 
at home? or was there a ban put upon it, and all 
allusion to it by common consent forbidden ? What 
a journey must this of the prodigal's have been, as 
in sorrow and remorse, in poverty and rags, all the 
fair and early prospects of his life blasted, all his 
hope gone, he begged his way toward the princely 
home of his youth! At last he draws nigh to the 
place of his birth, the locality of so many tender and 
touching memories. The old familiar sights once 
more, one by one, meet his eyes ; and now, while 
yet at a distance, the never-to-be-forgotten roof 



GOD'S FEELIJTGS TOWARD MAN. 33 

stands in yiew. You and I, friend, after a briefei 
absence than bad been the prodigal's, with less in 
memory and circumstance to quicken the heart, have 
choked as we caught sight of the familiar door, and 
knew that mother and father were within. '' How 
can I go on? " he must have exclaimed as he stopped 
and locked at himself. " How can I present myself 
at the door in such a plight ? How can I meet my 
father's eye, and stand in my father's presence? — 
that father whose counsel I disregarded ; whose love 
I slighted ; whose care I despised ; whose princely 
gifts, even to the half of his estate, I have squan- 
dered!" At this moment it was, even as he was 
standing in fear, hesitation, and doubt, his father saw 
him. Oh the feeling of that father's heart ! You 
who are parents, assist me to realize it. Tell me 
what words I can select to fitly express it. Tell us 
all, that these sinful men may know how God feels 
towards them, how you would have felt in that 
father's place. There, before him, stood his long- 
lost son, his latest born ; but, oh, how changed from 
what he once had been ! His clothing was like a 
sot's or beggar's. Debauch had seamed his once 
fair countenance. Hunger had written its lines in 
unmistakable characters across his face. His look 
was the look of woe ; the hollow, craving expression 
of a man when hope and heart have been beaten out 
of him. But no outward change of raiment, no 
haggardness of the flesh, could deceive that father's 
eye. It was his boy he saw. His heart rose up 
within him. Oh the rising of a father's heart at 



34 GOD'S FEELINGS TOWARD MAN. 

such a time ! What must it be ? He forgot the young 
man's rebellion; he forgot his desertion; he forgot 
every thing but his love for his boy. He started ; he 
ran ; he fell on his son's neck ; he kissed him ! Is 
this, tlien, God in his feelings toward man ? Blessed 
forevermore be the lips that spake, and the pen that 
recorded, this parable for our eyes to see and our ears 
to hear ! 

If there are any in the Divine Presence at this 
moment longing for reconciliation with God ; any 
who feel dissatisfied with their former life, and would 
change it ; any desirous of knowing what would be 
their reception if they should go in penitence to 
their heavenly Father, — you all must feel at this mo- 
ment what it would be. Away with definition ! — no 
one can define God. Away with dogma ! — no one 
can state his attributes. Away with the controversy 
of creeds ! — you might as reasonably expect to behold 
the reflection of all the stars in the heavens in one 
mirror as to confine the glory of the Divine Nature 
within the covers of a pamphlet : but here in this 
parable, spoken by Christ himself, here in this picture 
of a father with his arms around the neck of his son, 
kissing him, behold the attitude of God toward you 
to-day, and learn the love that no language can ex- 
press and no formula declare. 

But the cordial, the compassionate, the tender re- 
ception on the part of the father did not lessen the 
son's sense of guilt. He felt his utter un worthiness 
all the same, — even more.. His conviction had been 
deep, his repentance sincere. It was not selfish ben- 



GOD'S FEELIi^GS TOWARD MAN. 35 

efit that lie came to seek ; no mean idea of profit, no 
mercenary motive, had brought him home. It was 
forgiveness he wanted. It was reconcihation he 
craved. It was nearness to his father's person for 
which he longed. Release from his remorse ; deliv- 
erance from the terrible thought of his ingratitude ; 
his father's love, his father's care, — these were the 
desires of his heart ; these were the emotions, which 
his father's kindness had only served to deepen, that 
broke forth amid his sobs ; and he said, " My father, 
my father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy 
sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son ! " 

See the uppermost thought. It was sin. It was 
sin, not against man merely, not against himself 
even, it was sin against Heaven, which he had com- 
mitted. It was this that smote him with so deep a 
sense of his unworthiness. It was this he could not 
forget. But behold the forgiveness of the father ! It 
covered, it wiped out, every thing. It did not put him 
a while upon probation. It did not consign him for a 
month or six weeks to the servitude of fear. It was 
prompt ; it was complete ; it was with joi/. " But the 
father said to his servants. Bring forth the best robe, 
and put it on him ; and put a ring on his hand, and 
shoes on his feet ; and bring forth the fatted calf and 
kill it, and let us eat and be merry : for this, my son, 
was dead, and is alive again ; he was lost, and is 
found." 

My friends, behold the omnipotence of forgiveness I 
The mountains are vast, and the sea is without 
bounds : but neither can symbolize the forgiving love 



36 GOD'S FEELINGS TOWARD MAN. 

of God ; for its head is higher than the heavens, and 
the waves of its influence roll where the surge of the 
ocean never beats. The poles do not hmit it, nor the 
circumference of the firmament circumscribe. The 
eagle can soar to an atmosphere too thin to uphold its 
weight, and man can climb to a height where he can- 
not breathe ; but no angel can lift himself and no 
spirit mount beyond the diffused presence of its 
power. It is the very atmosphere of God; and, 
wherever Hfe and being are, there may it be breathed. 

Who here is breathing of this atmosphere to-day? 
Happy man ! happy woman ! What soul, returning 
from its wanderings in sin, can feel the arms of divine 
compassion around its neck, and the greeting of for- 
giving love upon its face ? What one of you all, who 
came to this sanctuary to-day, came as a prodigal, and 
can now hear your Father's voice saying to his angels 
that minister to the voice of his mercy, " Bring forth 
the robe of Christ's righteousness, the robe of joy, 
the robe of restoration, and put it on this soul ; and 
bring forth the ring, the emblem of rank and dignity ; 
and the shoes, those sandals that my chosen ones 
wear, and put them on him ; and make ready a feast 
of welcome and celebration : for, lo ! this soul that 
was dead is alive again ; and this spirit, that was lost 
so long, is at last, to-day, found" ? 

My people, I strive in this discourse to give utter- 
ance to your past, to embody in speech the primal idea 
on which this church was based. On the day when 
this edifice was dedicated (Jan. 10, 1810), standing 
in this pulpit, Dr, Qriffin of sainted memory, from 



GOD'S FEELINGS TOWAKD MAN. 37 

whose teachings you so largely derived your now his- 
toric position, said, — 

" The worship of God, as conducted in this house 
will not, I hope, wear the appearance of controversy, 
much less of bitterness against others, but of weak- 
ness rather, and gentleness, as the spirit of the gos^Dcl 
dictates. This pulpit was not erected to hurl anathe- 
mas against men, who to their own master must 
stand or fall. But here, with an eye uplifted to 
heaven, and filled with tears, we are to make suppli- 
cation for ourselves, our families, our brethren, and 
for a world l}dng in wickedness. Here, I hope, the 
truths of the gospel will be preached in all their sim- 
plicity, in all their mildness, and in all their force, 
without uncharitable allusions to any who may defend 
different yiews of the Scriptures." 

It was not controversial dogma, it was not the ter- 
ror of the law, it was not the dry formulas of the 
contesting schools, that he, who might almost be 
called the father of this church, said that he desired 
to have preached here. No: it was the simplicity 
and mildness of the gospel, the simple story of the 
cross and its humane apphcations, that he would for- 
ever have this pulpit proclaim ; and nowhere be- 
yond what they are in this parable are these charac- 
teristics of evangelical doctrines brought out. 

And now, friends, if there is a single person in all 
this audience who came here in doubt as to what 
are God's feelings toward him ; any one half per- 
suaded, and yet not daring to venture upon his mercy ; 
any over against whom such a mountain of sin has 



38 GOD'S FEELINGS TOWAED MAN. 

been heaved up by his transgressions, and who is so 
filled with the sense of his gnilt and folly, that he said 
to himself, " God never will forgive rae : others may 
have hope ; but my transgressions have been too 
many and great," — I trust that he no longer despairs, 
but has had such a hope come to him as he has listened 
and thought this morning, that he has already cast 
himself in glad confidence upon that mercy which is 
greater than his guilt. I do not say that you shall all 
repent to-day ; I do not say that you shall all become 
Christians : for these things are beyond my ordering. 
Such decisions rest entirely with you. But I do say, 
that, if any of you go out of this room this morning 
unforgiven and unaccepted of God, it will not be be- 
cause you are in doubt as to what his feelings are 
toward you, or as to the reception you would meet 
with should you arise and go to your Father's house, 
and say, " Father, I have sinned." Come, then, all 
ye who are weary and heavy-laden with the burden 
of your sins ; come, all 3'ou who broke away in your 
youth from your Father's hoase, and tire of your ab- 
sence ; come, all ye who are spiritually poor and 
weak and cast down, — know that your Father is wait- 
ing for you to-day. Before you reach his presence 
he will see you. While you are a great way off will 
his eyes behold you. He will see you, I say. He 
will run towards jou. He will take you in his arms. 
Weak and faint, you shall lie on his bosom. You 
shall feel his kiss on your face. He will restore you 
to his favor, and you will live in his house as a son 
and prince forever. 



SABBATH MORJflNG. MARCS 19, 1871. 



SERMO]^. 



TOPIC. -CHRISTIAN FAITH: ITS NATURE AND EFFICIENCY. 
" In the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood 

AND CRIED, If any MAN THIRST, LET HIM COME UNTO ME, AND DRINK. 
He THAT BELIEVETH ON ME, AS THE SCRIPTURE HATH SAID, OUT OF 
HIS HEART SHALL FLOW RIVERS OF LIVING WATER." — Johll vii. 37, 38. 

YOLTAIRE said that " man was a religious 
animal." The infidel spoke truth for once, at 
least so far as he af&rmed the presence of religious 
tendencies in man ; for it is undeniable that the 
human mind has its adaptations for spiritual exercise. 
It has spiritual longings and needs. No immortal 
being can keep his aspirations within the strict 
limits of a mortal life. His thoughts and feelings 
break over, and range widely on all sides. Like 
another Columbus, he believes in the existence of a 
world he cannot see. In reason he has demonstrated 
it. Da}' and night, his hope stands upon the look- 
out until that undiscovered country shall heave in 
sight. Ever and anon, a scented shrub upon the 
tide, a faint suggestion of fragrance in the air, or the 
flash of crimson wings through the mist, tells him 



40 CHRISTIAN FAITH : 

that he has almost come to the mysterious continent 
toward which he has so long sailed. AVhen, there- 
fore, I speak in explanation of the principles of reli- 
gion, I speak of a subject in which you are all 
interested. We may not think alike ; but every one 
must have some faith concerning the future. That 
person, with fair mental capacity, that is not curious 
as to it, who does not often assault it with sharp in- 
terrogations, is a marvel of intellectual lethargy ; for 
death must either be the grandest triumph, or the 
worst catastrophe, of a man's life. 

So, as I said, we are all alike interested in this 
matter. We all have a mutual interest in knowing 
just where we stand, and what we need. If there is 
thirst within us, where can it be quenched ? If 
there is danger ahead, how can it be avoided ? 

Now, friends, there is this peculiarity about the 
religion of Christ as held by the evangelical church- 
es, which must recommend it to every honest and 
earnest seeker after truth : it is a positive religion, — 
positive in its principles, definitions, and explanations. 
If a man comes to me, saying, " What must I do to 
be saved ? " I can tell him. If he inquires, " Why do 
I need to be saved? " I can tell him that. I do not 
speculate. I do not theorize. I do not amuse him 
by telling him what is not true. I tell him simply 
what is true. This is a great gain to start with. 
And all those preachers who are striving to build up 
a church on negation will find their labors vain. The 
age in which we live admires construction more than 
demolition. He who builds up, and not he that 



ITS NATURE AND EFFICIENCY. 41 

pulls down, will invariably win the. suffrage of the 
people. But the Christian religion is not onl}^ posi- 
tive ; it not only builds a person up in knowledge and 
goodness, but it does it by a process and in a way 
peculiar to itself. The mode of its operation is 
unlike that of any other force known in the realm of 
morals. 

There has never been a time, perhaps, in which 
efforts were not made to better men ; in which, at 
least, men did not speculate how to better themselves. 
The problems in morals have been as numerous and 
as closely contested as the problems of science. But, 
while countless methods have been suggested where- 
by man might be developed and ennobled, no unin- 
spired writer ever hit upon the plan adopted in the 
Bible. The idea that the forces to purify and elevate 
man were to be found in man ; that the beauty of 
manhood, like that of a flower, should be but the 
unfolding of a germ divinely planted in the heart ; 
that the richest maxims of morality should be proved 
sterile beside the germinant and germinating quahties 
sowed broadcast in the nature by the Spirit, — this, I 
say, was never dreamed of prior to the coming of 
Christ. Here we behold the broad line of demarca- 
tion which divides all philosophies from the religion 
of the New Testament ; and, that all of you may 
have it well impressed on your minds, we will pause 
at this point a moment to examine it. 

You have often seen a tree crooked and stubby in 
its trunk, gnarled and contorted in its branches, and 
every bough scarred with unsightly warts. It is aston- 



42 CHRISTIAN FAITH : 

isliing how ugly a tree can look, — almost as ugly as 
some men. Now, you can imagine that some one 
might undertake to rectify that tree, and go to work 
with saw and axe and knife to trim it up, and pare it 
down, and. thin it out, and make it symmetrical ; at 
least, less offensive to the eye : but he finds that he 
cannot do it. He can never, with any amount of 
trimming and cutting and paring, lengthen the stubby 
trunk, nor strengthen the crooked limbs, nor smooth 
down the warts : even if he might, the excrescences 
would grow again, and the tree, within a twelvemonth, 
swell all OA'er with uncomely protuberances, and the 
attempt be a total failure. 

But suppose that He who gave the tree life, and has 
power over all the forces of Nature that minister to 
it, should infuse them with purgative and rectifying 
qualities ; should so change the very sap of the tree 
with correcting and vitalizing power, that in answer 
to this energy, this propulsion from within, the trunk 
should wear}^ of its stubbiness, and be thrilled with a 
new ambition to grow, and shoot up, and the crooked 
branches stretch themselves out, finding correction in 
growth, and all the excrescences be sloughed off and 
fall away, leaving the bark smooth and green : you 
can all see at a glance how the tree might be rectified; 
how.it might become a reformed, a regenerated tree ; 
and you see how superior this latter method is to 
the former. 

Well, very like to this is it with man and the two 
methods adopted for his betterment ; the one method 
inspired by the gospel, the other attempted by the 



ITS NATURE AND EFFICIENCY. 43 

wisdom of tlie world. ]\[a,n is crooked and dwarfed 
by nature. His faculties are contorted, and doubled 
in upon themselves ; and, spiritually, he is ridged and 
covered all over with the protuberance of evil habits, 
and not seldom foul with the excrescence of passion 
and appetites ; and there are only two ways to rec- 
tify and reform him. He must be operated upon from 
within, or from without. External force must be 
applied, or internal force generated. And so educa- 
tion comes along and lays hold of him, striving to 
straighten him, but fails ; and morality saws away at 
his rougher vices, and, to its honor be it said, often 
removes them ; and polite culture trims down his 
coarseness ; and the fear of public opinion represses 
his gnarled devilishness : but in spite of education, 
which never made a saint yet, and not seldom makes 
the reverse ; and in spite of morality, which is no more 
to a man's temper than a curb-bit is to a fractious 
horse, which restrains, but does not remove, his vicious- 
ness ; and in spite of polite culture, which never did 
any thing more than to patch over the manifestations 
of depravity ; and regardless of public opinion, which 
prevents more thieving than jails, — the man remains 
crooked in his disposition, coarse and unlovely. There 
is no power under heaven, acting solel}^ from the out- 
side upon human nature, that ever did more than to 
make men decent ; ever did more than protect so- 
ciety from the grosser and more positive exhibitions 
of appetite and passion. Holiness of nature and of 
act never flowered out from such a planting. 
^ But observe ; let God draw nigh to a man, and 



44 CHRISTIAN FAITH : 

essay his rectification, and where does he begin ? 
With the outside ? No : he begins at the man's heart. 
He goes to the very roots of all his growth, and 
charges the very currents of his innermost life with 
new functions. He penetrates and infuses the man's 
spiritual system with healthy and operant elements. 
He does not attempt to filter the stream ; he goes 
at once to the very fountain-head of all his activities, 
and says, " Here let me purify this, and the current 
will clarify itself." That, friends, is the philosophy of 
regeneration, as it is called, — of the Spirit's work in 
the heart ; and I submit if there ever was a philosophy 
plainer, simpler, or more readily apprehended. There 
is no mystery about it. It is only this : sweeten the 
5ower, and the breeze will be scented. 

You see at a glance what spiritual economy there 
is in this arrangement. There is no waste of power, 
no misapplication of effort. You educate a man, and 
he will forget the lesson ; you moralize, and the im- 
pression passes away ; you threaten him with penal- 
ties, and he takes refuge in his cunning, and defies 
law : but jom correct his disposition, you change his 
heart, you purify and ennoble his motives, and you 
have secured all you desired at one stroke. Protect 
the reservoir, and all the pipes will run clean. Not 
only this : the man himself is not only pure and 
just and benevolent, but he communicates these to 
others. A friend sent a bunch of English violets to 
my study the other day, and they filled the whole 
room with their perfume. They did it without any 
effort ; without trying to do it. They seemed to say, 



ITS NATURE AND EFFICIENCY. 45 

" It is our life to be sweet : when we are not longer 
sweet, we shall be dead ; for while we have any 
existence, any vitality in us, we must be fragrant." 
And so they 3delded themselves upon the air, and 
passed away, and died, — dying as they had lived, 
imparting sweetness. And for three entire da\^s 
they made my study like a meadow ; and I thought 
and wrote of God as if I were seated amid the 
grasses when the moist earth and flowers mingle 
their breath in the warm sunshine. And so it is 
with a Christian whose heart has been changed from 
what it was by nature by the regenerating influence 
of the Spirit. Such a person cannot prevent his 
fervor and purity from spreading and communicating 
themselves. Why, if jou are patient and pure-minded 
and charitable, how can a person come nigh you, and 
not be impressed by these qualities ? Mirth is not 
one-half as contagious as goodness. It passes from 
lip to lip, and heart to heart, as birds pass from one 
tree to another, singing as they go. It is the common 
property of the world as truly as the fragrance of an 
orchard in June is the property of all who pass it. 
The owner cannot fence it in and monopolize it. God 
has seen to it that the sources of human delight, the 
creations that minister to human happiness, shall never 
become the exclusive property of any. He has placed 
them above the laws of earthly ownership. And so 
the trees flower, and the winds that know no fences 
nor bounds waft their sweetness every which way ; 
and the laborer who does not own a rod of ground, 
and the beggar who does not deserve to own one, — 



46 CHRISTIAN FAITH : 

for he is too lazy to work for it, — and the little child 
on its way to school, all can breathe the delicious air- 
that the rich man's orchard has sweetened. And so 
it is with goodness. You cannot keep it to yourself. 
It is as unselfish as a blossom. Its very life consists 
in moving and blessing. It is river-like ; and, as you 
all know, a river not only fills its own banks, but has 
its great beneficent freshet seasons, when it overflows 
its ordinary limits, and pours the rich and enriching 
tide of its fertilization over all the country round 
about it. And so the human heart, once empty and 
dry as a river's bed in August, fed and filled from 
the hidden sources of God's imparted love, swells and 
rises in all the current and outgoing of its affections, 
and overflows in blessing on all mankind. It is a 
very mockery of this beautiful and primal law of God 
touching the communication and common fellowship 
of goodness, that men will flock together, and form 
cliques and circles, shutting themselves up within 
sectarian and denominational lines, and strive to be 
dissimilar, when God by the touch of his Spirit has 
converted them from the antagonisms of nature and 
unbelief, and made them to be as one in Christ Jesus, 
with one faith, one Lord, one baptism. It is unwise ; 
it is wrong. It is elevating human taste and prefer- 
ence and prejudice above the aspiration of Christ 
and the purest longing of a sanctified heart ; which 
is, that all the children of God, and all those the world 
over who would fain be children, being prevented by 
reason of their ignorance touching the method of 
adoption, may be one, united each unto all, and al] 



ITS NATURE AND EFFICIENCY. 47 

unto each, even as are the branches of a tree, which 
huproYe their fellowship by growth, and get nearer 
unto each other as they strike their roots the deeper 
into the centre of a common trunk. 

But I must not diverge from the central thought. 
I am striving to illustrate the difference between the 
gospel plan of reforming men and those that ignore 
the work of the Spirit in the heart, and to shoAv you 
the superiority of the former over the latter. I wish 
you all to appreciate the vast, world-wide difference 
between the Christian religion and those religions and 
philosophies that take no account of the new birth, 
and leave the atonement of Christ entirely out of the 
problem. I desire that you who are merely moralists 
as contrasted with Christians ; you who are striving 
with your own powers of will, unassisted and uncor- 
rected of God, to make yourselves better, — may to- 
day realize that you are fighting a hopeless fight. 
You are working only from the outside, in the way of 
pressure and restriction ; whereas, if ever developed 
at all, you will be developed in holiness in the way of 
germination and expansion. Y.ou are striving to make 
a crab-tree bear peaches by pruning it. You put 
your hope in the saw and the knife, and not in the 
inserted slip ; whereas, as you all know, a new and 
higher order of life must be grafted into it or ever it 
will bear any thing better or sweeter than the expres- 
sion of its own original bitterness. I ask you, there- 
fore, to give over your useless attempt. You are 
proceeding on wrong principles of arboriculture. You 
are flying in the very face of Nature, which ordains 



48 CHRISTIAN FAITH : 

that like shall produce like. I ask you that your 
eyes may no longer remain shut, but stand open in 
recognition of your past folly ; and that you " receive 
with meekness the ingrafted word, that is able to save 
your souls." That is a criminal folly that refuses 
assistance in an effort so pregnant with grave conse- 
quences to you in your relation to either world as is 
this in which you are engaged. I know that this ap- 
plies only to you, in this audience, who are sincerely 
desirous of living better lives than you have lived, 
and who have solemnly declared to yourselves that 
your future shall be of a different complexion from 
your past. I do not say, friend, that you cannot live 
a better life than you have lived without becoming a 
Christian, — without such experience of repentance 
and faith as the Gospels enjoin upon all to have : for 
shame will do much, and fear more ; and by mere 
force of will, by sheer determination, you will be able 
to keep within the limits of safety as defined by human 
law. You may be able, from sources of resolution 
within yourself, to leave off drinking, and break off 
swearing, and withhold yourself from the grosser pol- 
lutions of past indulgence. But this I will say to you, 
and you must allow it, for it is true, that there is not 
a thing which you intend to do that you cannot do 
easier with God's help than you can without it, and 
that many things that you should do you never will 
nor can do unless you are assisted of him. You will 
never love him unless he shall " create within you a 
new heart." You will never obey him unless love shall 
prompt you to such obedience. You will never stand 



ITS NATURE AND EFFICIENCY. 49 

acquitted before the law which for years you have 
disobeyed, unless, in penitence and contrition, you ask 
for pardon. Come, then, in faith to Christ ; not in 
a faith that is without works, or that undervalues 
works, but that quickens you to work, and is mani- 
fested by works ; a faith which, while it relies on the 
mercy of God alone for salvation, is as active and dili- 
gent and watchful as if it relied entirely on itself. I 
do not preach a Christ to jon that saves his people 
by working for them alone, but by working in them, 
and thus disposing them to work out their own salva- 
tion. He has never saved, he never will save, a single 
soul, independent of its own activities, — such as love, 
repentance, obedience, and the constant use of all the 
helps and agencies of the Gospels ; but he has saved, 
and will save, all who, thus prayerfully and zealously 
co-operating with him, strive to make their calling 
and election sure. He mercifully begins that work in 
your hearts which jou and he both, acting in har- 
monious alhance, your wills being yielded to his guid- 
ance, carry forward until you are perfected in holiness. 
Do you all catch the idea ? Do your minds clearly 
apprehend the philosophy of the thing ? Do you see 
the beauty, the fitness, the harmony of this plan of 
salvation, which begins in the soul, and works outward, 
first purifying its thoughts and motives, and in this 
way correcting the conduct ? What other plan is so 
feasible, so economic of moral forces, so evidently of 
God, so honorable to men ? Be persuaded, then, all 
of you to whom my words come, and apply to Heaven 
for help. Go no more into the battle against Satan 

3 



50 CHRISTIAN FAITH : 

naked and without weapons, when you can, if you 
choose, be perfectly equipped at all points. Am I to 
stand by and see you swept down by your afflictions, 
deceived by errors, misdirected by false. prophets, led 
captive by your sins, dying without hope, and ushered 
into the presence of God without an advocate to plead 
for you, when you can have a Teacher and Comforter 
and Helper and a Saviour for the asking ? If I cannot 
prevail upon you who are rich and educated and 
physically strong, and to whom death seems as a far- 
off event, let me address myself to some ignorant per- 
son here, some day-laborer, some poverty-stricken 
one, or some one weakened by disease, unto whose 
soul death appears as an event soon to be experienced ; 
or some poor woman without a husband or love or 
home ; to some unfortunate person unto whom life is 
only a multiplication of labors and griefs and disap- 
pointments ; and to all you who feel your deep un- 
worthiness before God, and are ready to ask, " What 
must we do to be saved ? " — let me turn, my friends, 
to you, and say, '' Call on the name of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, and you shall be saved." Let me remind you 
of your past struggles with the Tempter, in which he 
has alwa3^s proved over-strong for you ; of the sinful 
habits against which you have made so many resolu- 
tions in vain ; of your defeat and failure in every effort 
to lead a godly life ; and, borrowing from the great 
apostle when he broke out in his letter to the Ephe- 
sians, exhort you : — 

" Stand, therefore, having your loins girt about 
with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteous- 



ITS KATURE A:N'D EFFICIEXCY. 51 

ness, and your feet shod with the preparation of the 
gospel of peace ; above -all, taking the shield of 
faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the 
fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of 
salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the 
word of God: praying always with all praj^er and 
supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with 
all perseverance and supplication for all saints ; and " 
— last, but not least — "for me, that utterance may 
be given me, that I may open my mouth boldly to 
make known the mj'stery of the gospel." 

I have now spoken of the nature of that faith which 
has for its residence the heart of man, and pointed 
out the mode of its efficiency upon the life. We de- 
rive from the text one or two other suggestions, which 
we will proceed to expand. " He that believeth on 
me," said Christ, " out of his heart shall flow rivers of 
living water.'''' 

The idea in the phrase, "rivers of Kving water," 
is one of plenitude. The heart that accepts Christ, 
that is directed and impelled by the Spiiit, shall not 
be the source of one good influence, but of many 
good influences. A hundred separate sources of 
benevolence are opened in it. Along a hundred chan- 
nels of communication the Christian blesses the world. 
A man with a converted heart hi his bosom is as a 
tree, when, through a thousand blossoms, it distils its 
sweetness upon the breeze. The very air disseminates 
his virtues, and the whole neighborhood in which he 
lives becomes morally fragrant. You send a dozen 



52 CHRISTIAN EAITH : 

missionaries to a heathen community, and see if this 
picture is not realized. You might as well light a 
dozen gas-jets in a room, and expect it to remain dark, 
as to think that ignorance and superstition could resist 
the outshining piety of those men and women. 

Furthermore, the influence of a converted heart is 
not only abundant ; it is active. The water to which 
it is likened is living water. A converted man's vir- 
tue does not stagnate ; it is not gathered into a reser- 
voir of reserve moral force for the world's great 
emergencies. The emergencies of the world are 
every-day emergencies ; and hence the activity of true 
godliness is an every-day activity. 

I know that some think otherwise. There is a vir- 
tue that is pyramid-like, — stately, solemn, and oppres- 
sive ; good to look at, and, for aught I know, good 
for nothing else. Superstitious ignorance and stupid 
piety bow down to the feet of it, and exclaim, " What 
a spiritually-minded .man ! " " What a devout and 
holy woman I " But what does this austere, this 
eternally self-possessed, this glacier-like piety do ? 
It wraps itself in the mantle of cold reserve, and 
looks with its sphinx-like face at the crowd below. 
My friends, I take no stock in that sort of piety. I 
like self-possession ; I like reserve ; I love to see in all 
of you decorum and true dignity : but I dislike to the 
last limit of expression a saintliness cool and pointed 
and unsympathetic as an animated icicle. I believe 
that nine-tenths of that kind of piety is sheer formal- 
ism ; a severe, castigated, and un-Christ-like discipline 
of nerve and voice and eye. Where is the genial 



ITS NATURE AND EFFICIENCY. 53 

overflow of love, the gusli of sympathy, and the 
warm-handed act of assistance ? Yv^here is the soft 
gentleness that stoops to all, and the tenderness that 
encourages all, and the frankness that invites all? 
These qualities are not in them. There is not a poor 
unfortunate in Boston that would lay her head and 
sob out her grief on the bosom of such a Christian. 
There is not an honest and deserving beggar in the 
city that would go u]o to a door if he saw such a 
man's or woman's face looking out of the window. 
And yet, as you loiow, such men and women are 
deemed superlativeh^ good in many of our churches, 
and held up as examples of high Christian develop- 
ment ; and this, too, in spite of the fact that there is 
nothing animated, nothing genial, nothing attractive, 
in them. Their piety is not like " living water," full 
of life and action, of ripple and flow, pleasant to 
hear, and free to the thirsty. Xo : it is like a river of 
frozen water, — a beautiful, hard, smooth, icy affair ; 
or if not, if it has anj^ life and motion in it, it is a 
stately, oppressive movement, which men merely ad- 
mire and wonder at, and lead in channels so high 
above their heads, that not one lip in ten thousand 
can ever touch it. Observe, I do not say that the 
conscientious of this class are not Christians ; are not 
connected by faith to Christ : I only insist and pro- 
claim that they do not fitly type and symbolize tlie 
spirit of the Gospels ; they do not give one a true and 
adequate expression of Christ's doctrine ; they are no 
proper examples for young Christians to copy after. 
The more ti-ue piety a man has, the more simple and 



54 CHRISTIAN FAITH : 

frank and ^^enerous he is. " Except ye become as 
little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of 
heaven." A converted person is one the windows of 
whose nature have been thrown wide open, and the 
love of God has shined into him, and he giveth light 
to all that are in the house. His is no longer a 
gloomy and morose nature : it is a sunny and fragrant 
nature. Children love him as they did Christ ; and 
children never love sombre and solemn men. The 
poor and the weak love him ; and the outcast, despised 
of others and despised of himself, hearing his tender 
words of hope and cheer, say, " If God is like him, 
then there may be hope for me ; " and, like the 
woman of Canaan, he cries out, " O Lord, Son of 
David, have mercy on me ! " 

My hearers, remember that there is no other test 
of piety so good as this. A disciple that so incar- 
nates Christ, so embodies the principles of love and 
mercy that he embodied, that he quickens all with 
whom he is brought in contact out of their old dead 
sinfulness, and fills them with longing and crying 
after holiness, is a true disciple indeed. I should be 
more cheered and upheld in my ministry among you 
to know that one poor, weak, erring, and downcast 
soul would go away from this house at the close of 
this service with eyes moistened with, unwonted tears, 
saying, " Oh that I had the living water in my heart ! 
oh that I might feel that there is a brighter day com- 
ing for me ! " than to hear all of you who are white 
and good and strong sa}^ " What an excellent sermon 
we have had this morning ! how much better I feel 
for it!" 



ITS NATURE AXD EFFICIENCY. 55 

. Some of Tou, I suppose, liaA'e gardens : at least, I 
hope YOU have : for it is m a garden that one gets 
back nearest to the experiences our first parents had 
before they sinned. And have you not gone out just 
after a heavy shower had passed, and found all the 
flowers beaten down from their props, the roses all 
dishevelled and woe-begone, and the pinks hiding 
thek sweet faces for very shame that you, the mis- 
tress, should see them so soiled, and spattered with 
dirt ? And did woman or girl ever find sweeter em- 
ployment than to go to each disentangled vine, and 
lift and retwine it in its old place, and retie the split 
buds, and wash the ugly dirt from the stained and 
disconsolate faces of the pinks ? Ah me, what gar- 
dening that is ! and how it makes one hate bricks and 
cities to think of it ! 

And is there any work so dehghtful to a Christian as 
to go to those poor souls, which are but God's flow- 
ers, that sorrow and sin have beaten down, and lift 
them tenderly, and wash them from adhering vices, 
and twine them around the sure support of some 
sky-reaching hope ? I tell you, that the men and wo- 
men who do that have the ''- living water" in their 
hearts, and are the only ones who exemplify Christ 
and the nature of his religion : and I would that 
you all might feel this, and not go on taking false 
models to yourselves, and educating yourselves in 
word and act and spirit farther and farther away 
from that state of heart which you must reach before 
the same mind will be in you that was in Christ 
Jesus. 



56 CHRISTIAN FAITH : 

But, if a person has a piety of this quality in his 
heart, he must and will do such deeds, unless he is re- 
strained by wrong education or the opposition of cir- 
cumstances. " Living water " must run and spread 
and nourish : did it not, it would not be living water, 
but dead, stagnant water. And Christ teaches in the 
text, that the heart which has faith in him must 
be an active, sympathetic heart. By the law of its 
renewed nature it is thus. You may go to the sun- 
beam, and try to darken it ; but its radiance is om- 
nipotent, and you cannot convert it into blackness. 
And so it is with the renewed heart: you cannot 
disintegrate it ; you cannot take that which chiefly 
characterizes it away. 

One more suggestion. Christ said, " Out of his 
heart shall flow living water." 

That is what we all want, my friends. We want 
our natures to be in such a state, that all manner 
of good shall flow out of them ; that is, come forth 
naturally and spontaneously. Holiness should come 
as easily and naturally out of the renewed nature as 
sin did out of the old unrenewed nature. Some peo- 
ple eject goodness. Their good acts are delivered 
like the report of a gun ; not a minute-gun, either. 
I have seen men who were six months in loading ; and, 
when they were ready to explode with benevolence, 
they flashed in the pan ! There is a certain concus- 
sive abruptness in their efforts to do their duty. After 
four or five years, during all the weeks of which they 
haven't even ticked, a revival occurs, and the good 
brother goes off like an alarm-clock. Now, that is 



ITS NATURE AND EFFICIENCY. 67 

not the Cliristian method. I presume that Christ — 
who is our pattern, remember — never made an isolat- 
ed, positive resolution to do a good deed in his life. 
He never worked himself up to a pitch of activity, and 
said, '' Now I am going to work ; now I will shake 
off this apathy, and attend to my Father's business." 
His will never had to assist his disposition. In im- 
pulse and desire, he was ever ahead of decision and 
opportunity. Doing good — he called it doing his 
Father's will — was the law, the natural exhibition, 
of his life. Who ever saw a bobolink shoot up from 
amid the matted clover-heads, and imagine that it was 
an}^ task for him to sing ; that he had scolded himself 
into the effort ; or that a company of neighboring 
bobolinks had been compelled to exhort him to rouse 
himself and make the attempt ? Why, his wings 
ached to fly, and his little throat was full to swelling 
with the crowding notes ; and all he had to do was to 
open his mouth, and the carol came out. And so it 
is with a truly converted soul. It nests amid the 
blossoming mercies of God, and is full of love and 
sympathy, of charity and tenderness. These are 
truly the expression of its life. They come forth un- 
forced. They can never be concealed. There is 
something exceedingly repulsive to me in the thought 
that the line of duty, of sheer obligation, bounds the 
fullest expression of my life in Christ ; that my S3'm- 
pathies are so sluggish, so low-blooded, as to need 
the spur of duty to quicken their lagging pace ; that 
there is no sweet sentiment in my heart to come out 
toward my fellow-men as the waters come out of a 



58 CHRISTIAN FAITH : 

spring, because of the uplifting, irresistible pressure 
of unseen fnlness from within ; that none live on 
earth, or will come and greet me in heaven, save those 
of whom my knowledge and memory have cognizance, 
and whom my will benefited. 

Ah, no ! Rather let me have the hope of living so 
that I shall bless many beyond my knowledge, and 
be like the rivers of living water, which never know 
how many roots they moisten, how much growth 
they cause, or how many flowers found fragrance 
possible to them because of their gracious tide. 

My friends, how many of you are living such a 
life ? How many of you have attained to this level of 
ceaseless and natural outgoing of goodness ? How 
many have this living water in your hearts, and are 
so full of the qualities of blessing that you can never 
know how many you bless ? Not all of you, certainly. 
Let us, then, inquire. Where can. one find this living 
water ? Whence comes to us this power, this grace, 
to live, that evermore shall flow out from us such in- 
fluences to man? It can be found, my hearers, I 
respond, in Christ; and in no one else can it be found. 

Is there not some one in whose society you are bet- 
ter than when with others ; whose presence is a kind 
of benediction in its power to calm and better you ; 
in whose presence all bad thoughts flee away, and all 
good ones gain ascendency ? Have we grown so old, 
so far away from our childhood, that the calm majesty 
of countenance, the sweet placidness of feature, the 
sound of an honest or tuneful voice, the fight of frank 
and loving eyes, cannot charm us ? Why, I think 



ITS XAIUEE AXD EmCIEXCY. 59 

I have seen faces wliicli liad so miicli of strength and 
patience and heaven in them, so much of that ex- 
pression that hmners give to the beloved di-ciple. that 
notliing mean and low and vile could live in the light 
of them. And I have often thought how much hap- 
pier and better some people wotild have been had 
their lot and companionship been other than they are. 
It is hard to hve with no inspiration near you : vhth 
the hea^y drag of the days on your soul, and no 
strong upsweeping current on which to rise. "Well, 
in Christ every longing and losing heart finds just 
such a friend, only one more abundantly so. Select 
the best person you hnow. — that one who helps you 
most : who comes nearest to your ideal of goodness 
and strength: with whom, in your reverential mo- 
ments, you have often thotiglit. if you could only con- 
tinually be. you could never sin. — select such a one, 
I say, deepen his sympathies and multiply his powers 
a thousand-fold, and think of him as loving you with 
an infinite love, and yoti have the Christ that I preach 
as your Sa^dour and your Lord. Xow. on the suppo- 
sition that I have not exaggerated his feelings toward 
3'ou, who of you all are ready to go to him to-day ? 
Who of you, taking all your sins of thought and act, 
and casting them under your feet as things to be 
hated, abhorred, and trampled upon, will go to Jesus, 
and say, " Here I am : oh ! let me be numbered among 
your fiiends " ? 

Life has its epochs, its crises, its seasons of reflec- 
tion and change. Many men, having passed throtigh 
years of indttlgence, have come to a point when and 



^0 CHRISTIAN FAITH : 

where God rallied all the forces of his own and of 
human love in their behalf, lifted them out of the 
mire of their jDast life, and put a new heart and a 
new purpose in them ; and from that day, ever after, 
they lived a happy and upright life. This is proven 
by the experience of many of you. Now, perhaps, 
here and there in this audience is a man or wo- 
man who reaches just such a point as this to-day. 
For several weeks you have been reflecting upon 
your spiritual condition. The more you have looked 
at your life as gauged by the word of God, the more 
have you seen your wickedness. You realize at last — 
what a mercy that it isn't too late ! — the set of the 
current. You feel, that, during all the years back of 
you, you have been gliding downward. You had no 
idea that you had drifted so far from the innocence of 
your youth. My friend, I am saying this personally 
to you ; and I say that now is your time, now is the 
very hour, for you to turn about. If 3*ou regret your 
past ; if you dread to repeat its sins of thought and 
act ; if you long for a nobler and purer experience ; 
if you would fain be at peace with God, and have 
the burden of guilt rolled from off your conscience, 
where it now torments you, — then is your duty 
plain, — as plain as the doors of your dwelhngs at 
noonday. To you is the invitation of the text ; and 
the majestic overture of Christ swells out for your 
ear to hear, for your heart to receive, saying, " If any 
man thirst, let him come to meJ^ 

It is not a matter of creeds ; it is not a matter of 
disputed doctrines : it is a matter of personal appli- 



ITS KATURE AXD EFFICIENCY. 61 

cation to the Saviour. The returned and repentant 
prodigal did not need to read a treatise on family 
government when his arms were around his father's 
neck, and his tear-filled eyes were buried in the folds 
of his father's robe. What he wanted then — and he 
had it — was a sense of his father's presence ; a sense 
of his undiminished love ; a heartfelt feeling that he 
was forgiven. So it is with you. I desire, not that 
you should think of the divine government as I do : 
I desire that you should feel, touching God, as the 
prodigal felt touching his father, — that the Deity is 
near you ; that his love, long slighted, long forgotten, 
is clasping you in its arms, and his face, fitishecl with 
a great joy, is over you, even as the heavens T^dth all 
their glory are over the earth at night. 

" If any man thirst." Is there one here who does 
not thirst ? Have the wells of the earth met your 
wants ? Have the fountains of the world fully satis- 
fied the longing of your souls ? Oh ! life is ga}^, and 
we make it merry with our feigned or sinful mirth. 
Each has a favorite phantom, and he chases it ; each 
heart its concealed idol, and the temple of our selfish 
loves are filled with the incense that forever barns 
upon their unblessed altars. We find our joys in de- 
lirium, and our activity in fever. And yet I know, 
I feel, that man is too vast in his capacity, too mighty 
' in his strength, to be satisfied with these. If the 
fastening of the mask should part, we should stand 
amazed at the pallor and wretchedness . of the face 
behind it. And none save God, who made us great 
enough to suffer greatly, knows what we endure even 



62 CHRISTIAN FAITH, 

in the daj^s that men count our triumphs. No, no ! 
not here do we find peace. Even as the heavens 
alone are wide enough to hold all the stars, so in 
Christ alone does man find all he needs. In him the 
intellect and heart behold a shoreless sea, — a sea 
whose farther beach, if beach there be, no voyaging 
of thought, no flight of winged fancy, shall ever 
touch. Launch then, ye voj^agers toward eternity, 
upon this sea to-day. Cast yourselves on Christ, and 
feel beneath you the uj)lifting motion of his life, as 
ships the heaving of the flooding tide. Let not your 
past detain you; let not your fears intimidate. I 
have sailed this sea mj^self long enough to know that 
peace broods on its waters ; and thousands who once 
worshipjDed here, in the very seats in which you sit, 
miled it for years with growing joy, and passed from 
jnortal view at last, as vessels, when sailing westward 
of a summer day, their sails and yards all crimsoned, 
melt gradually from sight amid the radiance of the 
broad-faced and luminous sun. So may it be with 
you, I pray, when you have sunk the orb of this mor- 
tal life behind you, and have passed, changing from 
glory unto glory as you go, until at last your lives 
shall be hidden with Christ in God. 

" And on the last day, the great day of the feast, 
Jesus stood, and cried. If any man thirst, let him 
come to me, and drink. He that believeth in me, as* 
the Scripture hath said, out of his heart shall flow 
rivers of living water." 



SABBATH MORJ^IXa, MARCH 26, 1871. 



SERMOK 



SUBJECT. -HOUSEHOLD RELIGION) OH, THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF 
CHILDREN. 

" Peace be to this house." — Luke x. 5. 

I WISH to speak to you this morning upon the 
subject of household rehgion, especially that 
branch of it which relates to the religious education 
of children, — a subject at all times of the deepest 
interest, but especially so in seasons of revival. 
Many of you in this congregation are parents. You 
represent many households. Your obligations are 
peculiar. You feel this yourselves. You are guar- 
dians over many ; and the prayerful search of j'our 
hearts is, how you can properly discharge your duties 
as parents before God. It is in reference to this that 
I am to speak by waj' of suggestion. I submit, there- 
fore, to your judgments, the following considera- 
tions : — 

The first thmg you need to remember, as parents, is, 
that you have no ownership in your children. Before 
you will ever feel and act toward them as you should, 
you must have a heartfelt conviction that they are 

63 



64 HOUSEHOLD RELIGION; OR, 

God's cliildren rather than your own. You are not to 
dispose of them as you wish, but as he wishes. His 
desires, not yours, are to be consulted in their educa- 
tion. You are to train them to be, not what you 
would have them to be, but what he would have them 
to be. He lias committed them to your care for a 
time, to train, discipline, and instruct, and to fit them 
for such services, and mode of life, as he shall ordain. 
This is a vital point, — the key to the entire problem. 
No matter how zealous you are ; no matter how ear- 
nest and loving and conscientious you are : you will 
never educate children for God unless you feel that 
they '4Ye his, not yours. If you feel that they are 
yours, that you own them, you will be likely to 
educate them for j^ourselves, and not for him ; you 
will strive to make them excel in things that are 
agreeable to you, and not agreeable to him : and the 
result will be, that without realizing it, without wish- 
ing it, you will rob God, by the substitution of your 
own wishes in their education and development in 
the place of his. He will be divorced from his own, 
and his own will not know him. They will grow up 
unfitted for his service, and unconscious of his father- 
hood over them. They will never know that to be 
true which the Scripture teaches, — that God is the 
former of their bodies, the father of their spirits, 
whose name they should honor, and in whose service 
they should find their chief delight. 

Secondly, such a mistaken conception of your rela- 
tion to your children will lead you into another and 
greater error, — non-submission to God in his provi- 
dential dealing's with them. 



THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 63 

When death comes, the mother feels that it is her 
child that has been taken. She has not loved it as God's 
child, but as her own. She has even made a virtue 
of appropriating it entirely to herself. She has never 
admitted to her own heart, she has perhaps never 
dreamed, that any one save herself and its earthly 
father had any claim to it, any right touching its 
disposal. She has never looked upon it as in any sense 
belonging to Heaven, save in the indirect way of grace 
and destiny ; and either resents what appears to her 
affection a cruel interference, or, if she submits, does 
it falteringly, and as one yields to a mysterious and 
unaccountable mandate coming forth from an authori- 
ty she can neither resist nor understand. The result 
is rebellion, or a submission born of a cruel necessity, 
and accompanied by a grief uncontrolled by an in- 
telligence touching the true relation which, from its 
very birth after the flesh, it sustained to God. I fear 
that these remarks will come with abruptness and 
harshly to you who are parents, and whose habits of 
thought have been formed on the basis of natural 
affection, and not of Scripture, which plainly and ex- 
pressly teaches that God is the maker of our bodies 
and the father of our souls ; that parents and chil- 
dren alike are all his offspring, and, as such, absolute- 
ly and without limitation his, to do with us and ours 
even as appears good in his sight and for his glory. 
But it is not given unto me to preach, a gospel of my 
own, or in accordance with my own or your past 
habits of thought. I must proclaim what is con- 
tained in the Scriptures, without striving to accommo- 



66 HOUSEHOLD RELIGION; OR, 

date it to your feelings, the more especially if your 
opinions are derived from other sources than His rev- 
elation of Himself, and of our duties toward Him. 

Allow me, then, to exhort you who are parents 
to no longer deceive yourselves touching this matter. 
The continuance of this error in your minds will only 
work mischief to yourselves and your children. Let 
the head of every household in this congregation 
remember from this day onward that the members 
of that household are not his, but God's. That son, 
in whom you take such pride, whom you have educat- 
ed and are educating, your prop, your stay, — father, 
that boy is not j^ours. There is a higher claim than 
yours resting upon him : it is the claim of his Maker 
and his God. His body, his brain, his soul, do not, 
never did, and never can, belong to you. He has been 
intrusted to your care : you were elected, by your 
connection with his birth, to be his guardian, his 
teacher, his guide, until such time when he shall be 
able to walk alone ; but the ultimate authority over 
him, the right to say how long you shall continue 
to hold this relation to him, or when it shall cease, — 
this never belonged to you. It is not, therefore, for 
you to dispose of his life, or say where the locality of 
it shall be. When his real Father desires his presence, 
lie will call. When he calls, do thou surrender him, 
and bid him go as one who does not belong to you. 
He leaves your house to return to his Father's. He 
dwelt with you ; but his home was never with you, but 
with God. 

The dedication of children to God in baptism is but 



THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 67 

the acknowledgment of this truth. In this act of 
dedication, of surrender, we publicly affirm our belief 
in God's ownership in our children. Feeling this to 
be the case, we publicly acknowledge it. We take 
the church and world to witness that we consider 
these little ones as God's ; and we, as is our bounden 
duty, give them up to him gladly, lovingly. This is 
the real significance of baptismal dedication. The same 
is true touching the baptism of adults. In the act, 
the man gives himself to God. He publicly acknowl- 
edges that he owns not himself, neither by nature nor 
grace. By nature he belongs evidently to his ]Maker, 
by reason of the fact that the thing made cannot own 
itself; while by grace he has been ''bought with a 
price," and belongs to God by the right of purchase. 

I have now announced what I believe to be the 
true and scriptural principle which underlies the pa- 
rental relation. Standing upon this elevated concep- 
tion of it, and making it as our lookout, the whole 
field of dut}^ lies stretching wide and plain before us. 
I will now remark, by way of application, ■ — 

In the first place, then, this view of the parental 
relation will supply you, in the training of your chil- 
dren, with the only motive which is in harmony with 
the scriptural injunction, — the glory of God. If you 
look upon your children as your own, you will edu- 
cate. them for yourselves; your motive will be your 
own glor}^, happiness, and peace : or you will edu- 
cate th(^,m for themselves, that they may be honored, 
prosperous, and happ}^ To assist you, or serve them- 
selves ; to prepare them for that which, by the 



68 HOUSEHOLD RELIGION; OR, 

standard of the world, is called usefulness ; to fit 
them to fill earthly positions of trust, — this will be 
your main motive. For this you will send them to 
college, or train them in your stores ; while in all 
your cares and plans for them, in all your hopes and 
dreams, a regard for the divine glory will never enter. 
I know not how many of you have been doing this ; 
but I warn such of 3^0 u as have to correct your mo- 
tives at once. If you have usurped God's place to- 
ward your children, God may leave you to fill it. He 
may say, " You have educated your boy for yourself: 
now protect him." But what father can protect his 
son as God can ? If your toil and anxieties for your 
children are prompted only by parental affection, 
then are you impelled by no nobler or holier motive 
than are the animals ; for verily they will toil and 
suffer, yea, and die, for their offspring. Never until 
parental affections are sanctified, never until all 
your labors, cares, and plans- shall be hallowed by a 
fervent desire to train them so that they may glorify 
their heavenly Father, will you lift yourselves to the 
level of a rational and Christian motive. 

I ask you, furthermore, to bear in mind that your 
children are immortal. Their wants are not earthly 
wants. Their deepest needs are not of this life. 
This they will not at first realize. This you must 
teach them. Tell them, then, of heaven. Tell them 
of the life to come. Tell them of eternity. Be sure, 
father, to tell your son of these things. Let him 
early understand the mighty truth of his immortality. 
Let him not set his affections on things of this world 



THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 69 

because he knows not of the things above this world. 
What ! shall you, a teacher ajDpointed of God to teach 
these things, say nothing whatever concerning them ? 
How will you be able to excuse yourself if you 
shall rcDiain dumb? If your boy shall be lost, at 
whose door will God lay the responsibility, — at yours, 
or his ? or will you both be alike condemned ? I say 
not this by way of upbraiding ; I say it not in arro- 
gance, or in assumption of authority over you : I say 
it in the way of suggestion, of exhortation, as your 
pastor, your spiritual teacher, and your friend. I 
speak to stir up your minds by remembrance ; to put 
you face to face with the gravest responsibility your 
lives will ever know. I set my interrogation as a 
spur to the sides of your affection, that it may not lag, 
but hurry on toward the goal of its noblest hope; 
and I say. Remember the immortality of your children, 
if you hope to stand acquitted of all charge before 
God at the last day. 

The great danger of our country and age is that 
children are being educated selfishly, and into selfish 
principles. Ours is a materialistic age and land. 
Even duty inclines us toward earthiness. In a new, 
undeveloped country, this is necessarily so. The 
forests must be levelled, railroads built, canals digged, 
commerce developed, before art and science and 
ethical culture can thrive. The progress that this 
country has made in the last thirty years in material 
development is beyond all precedent. You may 
search all history in vain for a parallel case. Never 
from the beginning of the world was there any thing 



70 HOUSEHOLD RELIGION; OR, 

like it. Our growth has been like that of the tropics, 
— rank and exuberant. Ere the seed is decayed, the 
tree is matured. The very air is moist and heavy 
with the odors yielded upon it by the upspringing 
growth around us. Life in America is, to a large ex- 
tent, a mad chase after material wealth. Our children 
are fevered at birth. The ambition of the father to 
amass and hoard finds a new lease of life in the son. 
As a generation, we are " of the earth, earthy." Mark 
you, I do not upbraid you for this. Every force and 
passion has its place in the plan of God. He utilizes 
even -our excesses, as physicians do poisons. Across 
the mirk of our sordidness he stretches the arch of 
his glory. The heavens weep ; but he flashes the 
brightness of his presence through their falhng tears. 
But, friends, you know as well as I, many of you 
better, — for you read the warning with the eyes of a 
deeper knowledge and a longer experience, — you 
know, I say, that such a career has its dangers. Ex- 
cessive wealth rapidly gained is fearfully attractive. 
The children worship the gods that the fathers 
builded; and what to the parents was only the 
means to an end, becomes to their descendants the 
object of their existence. The worst possible fortune 
that can happen to a generation is to live the first 
twenty years of its life with a false standard before 
its eyes. That young man who is educated by the 
example of his father, and the customs of the com- 
munity in which he lives, to believe that earthly pros- 
perity is the best reward that life can give and effort 
yield, is mortgaged in all his higher faculties to fail- 



THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. Tl 

lire, to start with ; and especially is this true when 
earthly prosperity comes to him in its lowest and 
basest form, — the accumulation of money. O 
father ! if you can teach your boy nothing nobler 
than this, if you can lift his feet to no higher level, 
if you can crimson his future with no purer hope, 
then let him die at once. If this is to be the end 
of your guardianship over him ; if, as teacher and 
guide, you can serve him no better than this, — then 
yield him back to God. Let him return unto heaven 
at least with his mind unperverted, and his soul un- 
stained. There, as the ages pass, he shall learn a 
higher wisdom. There, in the light of the glory of 
the Lord, he shall live a life worthy of his opportuni- 
ties, and commensurate with his powers. For what 
is existence, what the multiplication of days, what 
the swift passing of years replete with experience of 
events, — what are these but a curse and a calamity, 
if they serve but to divorce the young from the Au- 
thor of their being, and reduce their eternal condition 
to the status of a Dives? 

Listen to me, now, and accept what I say ; for it 
comes in truth out of heaven to you as a star out of 
the sky. Receive it as it falls into your hearts, lest 
the heavens withhold their favors, and send no more 
their messages of brightness to your souls. 
. Teach your boy otherwise. Say to him, '' My son, 
I am not educating you for this earth : I am educating 
you for. heaven. I am not showing you how to serve 
yourself: I am showing you how to serve God. It 
will not delight me one hundredth part so much to 



72 HOUSEHOLD RELIGION; OR, 

know that you are fitted for business as to feel that 
you are fitted in. character and taste for heaven." 
Say to him, " My boy, I am not able to keep you : 
God alone is able to keep you. He alone gives the 
breatli to your nostrils ; he alone upholds you : but 
for him, you would, even while I am talking with 
you, drop dead. Remember that you are not mine ; 
you are not your mother's : you are God's. He 
gave you life. He upholds you day by day : without 
him you could do nothing. By and by, your stay 
here will end. He will send forth his messenger to 
bring you home, and you must go. Ah ! see to it that 
you are prepared to meet him in that hour." Say 
this to your son, father ; say it in so many words. 
Some things must be spoken to be fully understood. 
The voice adds force to the truth, and deepens its 
impression. Bear testimony, then, for God, and your 
children will remember it while you live ; and when 
you have gone from sight, being gathered to your re- 
ward, they will say, " Our father failed not in his 
duty toward us, but taught us all he knew of wis- 
dom ; " and they Avill rise up and call you blessed. 

And who are blessed if it be not the parents of 
pious children ? Who are miserable if it be not the 
parents of the ungodly ? Who is so fortunate as 
they who are represented by intelligence and virtue 
after they are gone ? — who so unhappy as they 
whose names are linked with ignorance and vice, and 
perpetuated only in connection with crime ? 

Mj friend, is your boy a Christian ? If not, does 
the fact bring an impeachment against you ? Have 



THE EELIGIOTJS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 73 

you used aright the office and prerogatives of parent- 
age ? Is he living for eternity ? If not, is it through 
lack of instruction on your part ? Is he of the num- 
ber of those who find their delight in serving the 
Lord ? If not, is it because your example has been 
to him as a stumbling-block ? Would it give you joy 
to see him take publicly the vows of God upon him ? 
If so, have you, by example, supplication, and prayer, 
brought the needed conviction upon his mind ? Has 
religion been made to seem an unreal and empty affair 
to him by your way of practising it ? Has your in- 
sincerity made him a sceptic ? Are you a professor ? 
If not, how can you expect your child to be ? Ah 
me ! how inexorably effects are linked to causes ! 
How in the last day shall it be seen that one man fell 
because another faltered ; the wife was lost because 
the husband hesitated ; the children perished through 
the backsliding of the parents ; the son died as a fool 
dieth, because the father, in all the practices of his 
life, said, " There is no God " ! 

Blessed are the childless, if they live not up to the 
level of Heaven's requirement ; blessed the man who 
can say, " My sins will be buried with me ; my faults 
and follies will reach their hmit in my grave ; thoy 
shall lie down with me in death ; they shall die when 
I die; they shall disappear from the earth when I 
go hence ; they shall be no more forever," — blessed, 
I say, is such a one beside him who has failed to ful- 
fil the duties, and improve the opportunities, of par- 
entage ; for barrenness is better than imbittered and 
perverted fruitfulness. 



74 HOUSEHOLD RELIGION; OR, 

The cliildren of the future are to be children of 
temptation. They will breathe an atmosphere mor- 
ally miasmatic. Their fathers took the vital (dements 
out of it, and left it tainted. The sources whence 
you derived your virtue when boys are closed to-day. 
The old home-life, with its crisp atmosphere of puri- 
tan government, its habits of honest and honorable 
industry, its conservative customs, and its simple, 
reverent faith in God, all centred around one spot, 
all hallowing one locality, — these are passed away. 
Never again will New England know them. Never 
again will harvests ripen in that upland soil. Our 
children are nursed on the level of swamps ; and the 
whir of factory-wheels, and the roar of car and cart, 
drown the mother's hymn. The oaken cradles that 
rocked you into vigor are too rough for the effemi- 
nacy of this age ; and the old songs, on the soft, mov- 
ing melody of which our infant minds floated into a 
world as pure as the strain that wafted us, live only 
in tradition. A boyhood passed in a city is a far dif- 
ferent thing than one passed in a country. Its sights 
and sounds and dirt bring forward what should be 
repressed. It forces nature, and at a time, too, when 
the physical and the sensuous preponderate in the 
nature. It begets a license of thought and conduct 
before the judgment is sufficiently matured to check 
it. It kindles the imagination when it should be qui- 
escent, or active only within certain limits and in pure 
directions. It educates one into necessities faster 
than individual effort can earn the means of supply- 
ing them ; and fosters that worst of all habits to a 



THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 75 

young man, — eating and wearing and spending what 
lie has not earned. And, lastly, it holds up a wrong 
standard of success before his eyes, and makes ambi- 
tion, which God intended as a blessing, a curse, in 
that it perverts and misdirects the going-forth of its 
activities. I do not say, parents, that these evil ten- 
dencies cannot be lessened or wliolly counterbalanced; 
but I do say that they call for the utmost effort on 
your part, and make anxiety to be reasonable. A 
little carelessness, a few years of indifference, a letting- 
down of watchfulness, and evil examples and sur- 
roundings will have done their work, and the charac- 
ters of your children will be irretrievably weakened 
or ruined. I do not say that they will not achieve 
what the world calls success ; although even this will 
be hazarded : but I do say that they will never lead 
that life of faith and holiness which springeth there- 
from, that can alone commend them in their charac- 
ter andtjonduct to the favor of Almighty God. They 
will live and labor as those whose lives end at the 
grave ; their treasures will be of this earth ; they 
will labor only for the meat that perisheth ; the line 
of pure selfishness will circumscribe their lives ; and 
the shame and confusion of the fool, and the guilt of 
the unfaithful, will cover them when they appear be- 
fore God. 

I believe, that to every thoughtful, every sensitive 
mind, the greatest mystery and the most solemn event 
of life is the act of birth. The loveliest relationship 
known to mortals, spanning the darkest life like an 
arch of light, which rests its either base on blocks of 



76 HOUSEHOLD RELIGION; OR, 

jasper, is the relationship between parent and child. 
The bond that is born of begetting and being begot- 
ten is the holiest known to men, and the birth of a 
child the sweetest and most solemn event that can 
J ossibly transpire. The body that is not sanctified 
by the transmission of snch a divine communication 
is indeed dead to all holy impulse. To be permitted 
by the Divine Power to call a soul from nothingness ; 
to make inanity intelligent ; to send out into the uni- 
verse from the dumb lips of silence, yea, from that 
which never spoke, and knows no speech, a living 
note ; a note that cannot die ; which will move on, 
unchecked by counter-waves of sound, ever keeping, 
whether amid the torrent and tempests of discord or 
the mingling of all melodies, the clear-cut outline of 
its own individuality; a note that will never reach 
its fullest expression, never touch a limit and recoil 
upon itself; that will move on and on, filling one 
space only to enter another and a larger, -;- this is 
wonderful ! Before this thought I veil my face as in 
the presence of too great a light. But what should 
be our feelings when we reflect that God grants us 
not only to send forth such a note, but to decide what 
the character of it shall be ? You, parents, are per- 
mitted to say whether the lives of your children shall 
be the prolongation of discord, or the going-forth of 
a sweet and perpetual hymn ; a distinct addition to 
that good which now is, and is forever, pleasing be- 
fore God. I fear, friends, that you have all been too 
little sanctified in your loves, too earthy in your act 
of parentage, too selfish in your appropriation of 



THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. ( i 

God's own, to have added as you might to the uni- 
versal harm on}". 

And now I nay to all of you who are under my 
pastoral charge, and to you also who are with us to- 
day, as brought together to this assembly by a direct- 
ing Providence, — and I say it not as declaring an un- 
known truth, but as re-affirming one already known 
to you, — The best, the only adequate protection for 
your children against the manifold temptations to 
which they are and will be exposed is to be found in 
personal religion. In bringing them to God in con- 
version lies your only hope. If hitherto you have 
neglected this first and greatest duty of parentage, 
start out to-day upon its perfect performance. I ap- 
peal to you as their natural guardians and divinely- 
appointed guides. I appeal to you as especially fa- 
vored in circumstance and position. The power of a 
father's counsel, — who shall estimate it ? The ten- 
der, lasting, sin-conquering influence of a mother's 
prayer, — who can describe it ? Your children them- 
selves look to you for advice and instruction touching 
the way they should live. Do you say they have never 
asked for it ? Do you expect, I respond, that they will 
take the initiative ? Is duty to remain undone, until, by 
forwardness, they reverse the order of nature ? Is 
the boy to teach the sire the fulfilment of obligation ? 
Is the daughter to interpret the providences of God 
to the mother? Is ignorance to enlighten knowl- 
edge ? Must weakness brace the loins of strength 
with a girdle ? Must the unrenewed heart show a 
regenerated nature how to be faithful ? What a con- 



78 HOUSEHOLD RELIGION; OR, 

dition of things is this in a Christian family, when 
the order of nature and grace both is reversed, and 
that which should be first is last, and the last 
first! 

Oh that my voice might penetrate to every family 
in this city, and give expression to the needed rebuke, 
the needed encouragement, and the needed warning ! 
Oh that this interrogation, as with a force given it 
from the lips of God, might cleave the intervening 
distance, and stir the air of every chamber where 
parents will sleep to-night, and they might hear a 
voice amid the darkness, saying to their startled and 
awe-struck souls, " Are jou doing your duty to your 
children ? " O parents ! you who sleep so soundly 
at night, while Death, like a burglar, stalks around 
your dwelling, you who deem your duty done in the 
daily utterance of a formal prayer at the family-altar, 
what will become of your children when they die ? 
Will your love save them ? Will your pride at their 
accomplishments avail ? Will the sharp regret, the 
agony of remorse, at your unfaithfulness, call back the 
departed life when the body of your child lies in its 
coffin ? I marvel that a Christian home can be happy 
while there is an impenitent child in it. 

Bear with me if I press you. If your child is not 
converted in your household, in what other household 
may he ever be converted ? If he grows hard under 
your care, at whose touch shall he soften ? If you, 
O mother ! — that dearest word this side of heaven, and 
whether heaven shall reveal a dearer 1 know not, — if 
you cannot win him to reason and holiness, who can ? 



THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 79 

After such a failure, who may ever have the courage 
to renew the attempt? 

Alas ! my friends, I fear that some of you who are 
parents are not Christians yourselves. Your children 
are impenitent ; and therein do they follow your exam- 
ple. Their lives are no more faulty than the stan- 
dard that you put before them. Their very love for 
you, their very confidence in you, heave up obstacles 
in the path of their conversion. You stand between 
them and their God. Their unbelief is rooted in your 
example. Do you remember the words of Scripture ? 
" For it must needs be that offences come ; but woe 
unto him by whom the offence cometh ! " I call upon 
you, — and I speak as one appointed of God to say it 
to you, — I call upon you, as you love your child, as 
you would have it live in virtue and die in peace, as 
you would not neutralize the means of grace merci- 
fully provided for its salvation, to no longer stand in 
the way of its conversion. Repent and believe your- 
self, to the end, if for no higher reason, that your child 
may repent and believe also. Is this not motive 
enough ? What other appeal might come with such 
force to a father's heart ? I make no other. My 
plea shall rest here. I lay it on your conscience. I 
bolt it within the chamber of your memory. May it 
lie forever at the door of the one ! may it never de- 
part from the presence of the other I I express it in 
words that the sound of it may haunt you as love 
haunts the steps of the insane, as fear the presence 
of the unjust, '• Repent and believe yourself, that your 
child may repent and believe.''^ 



80 HOUSEHOLD RELIGIOK 

Must my words be in vain ? Shall the days pass, 
the sun rise and set, the clouds yield their moisture, 
the laborer fail not, and yet no harvest appear ? Is 
any one quickened ? is any one convicted of duty ? 
Have I builded a family-altar to-day ? Have I re- 
kindled the flame on one whose fires had gone out ? 
Have I suggested a higher type of love than the 
earthly ? Will your treatment of your children be 
more tender, more loving, more reverent, now that 
you have been reminded whose they are ? If so, then 
rejoice with me, friends, as if I had been made rich ; 
for my hope is met, and my prayer answered. 

" But shall I love my child less ? " I hear some one 
inquire. Less ? No ; more, — a thousand-fold more. 
Heretofore you have loved it for its own sake ; hence- 
forth love it for the Father's sake ; for the sake of 
God ; for the sake of " Him whom your soul loveth." 
Up to this you have loved it as a mother loves : 
love it now as Christ loves. Until to-day, you loved 
it for time : love it now for eternity. Can you lift 
yourself to this level ? Can you make the mortal 
seem immortal ? Will the face of your child appear 
to you, as you go to your homes this noon, like the 
face of an angel ? If so, pray for no greater blessing 
than shall come to you : for at your door shall stand 
the form of a man, jet it will not be man's ; and it 
shall knock, and you shall open to it ; and, when your 
door is open in welcome, it shall speak, and say, 
" Peace be to this house ; " and the peace of God, that 
passeth all understanding, shall abide on you and 
yours forever. 



SABBATH MORKING, APRIL 2, 1871. 



SERMON. 



SUBJECT. -POSITIVENESS OF BELIEFS ITS NEED AND EFFICIENCY. 

"That we be >-o more children, tossed to and fro, and carried 
about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, 
and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to de- 
CEIVE." —Ephes. iv. 14. 

MANY inquiries have been addressed to me late- 
ly, especially from those in and beyond my 
own congregation who have recently been converted, 
and who from this fact are now called upon to con- 
sider many matters of duty upon which they have 
never reflected, concerning the necessity of a fixed 
and definite belief. Some are troubled in their minds 
touching the matter of creeds and verbally-expressed 
formulas of faith ; and the passage that I recited as 
my text has been suggested as one upon which they 
desire me to base a discourse. The request being 
reasonable, and one perfectly natural for people in 
their position to make, I comply. 

I do this the more readily, friends, because you 
who are acquainted with me know that I do not wor- 
ship formulas nor bow down to creeds. I am not 



82 POSITIVENESS OF BELIEF: 

conscious that I was ever impelled by the love of an- 
tiquity. Mildew and mould are not to me objects of 
reverence. I care no more for a piece of parchment 
inscribed in the third century than for a pamphlet 
bearing, the impress of the Riverside press. '' The 
Mayflower," in itself considered, is no more to me than 
any respectable-looking craft in your harbor to-day. 
Is it needed? Does it bring men nearer to God? 
Does it enlarge the mind ? Does it stir the best sym- 
pathies of the heart ? These are the questions I put 
to my judgment concerning any matter brought for 
me to consider. These compose the real touchstone 
of value. Every generation has to sit in judgment 
on its own needs. A change in condition and circum- 
stance often, as you know, begets a change in duty ; 
and what was wise in the father becomes folly in the 
conduct of the son. Every age has to debate and de- 
cide what is right and expedient for itself. 

I have often said to you, that I do not care a rush 
for a belief or a doctrine that does not better a man, 
and quicken him to Christ-like labor ; and I repeat it, 
hoping by the repetition to make it more emphatic, 
and embed it more deeply in your memories. And 
yet I believe in beliefs, and I believe in creeds, — 
written formulas, express statements of faith. They 
are, in my opinion, needed and helpful. They 
strengthen and steady the churches. They strength- 
en the individual disciple. They hold an important 
position among the forces that are evangelizing the 
world. And I wish this morning to suggest to you 
certain considerations that may cause this to appeal 
manifest to .you, 



ITS NEED AND EFFICIENCY. 83 

One reason, then, why a positive expression of faith 
is valuable to a man, is because it compels him to 
take a position. It centralizes his powers, and brings 
his energies to a focus. It quickens thought, because 
it opens him up to attack. It is only when a man's 
feet touch the bottom that he begins to feel the 
pressure of the current, and braces himself to resist 
it. In morals, no believer should drift. Religion, in 
its doctrinal teachings, is too grave a matter for one 
to have no conviction upon. It is only when you 
have clearly decided in your own mind what to think 
of Christ, where to locate him in the grades of 
essence and being, reached a positive and heartfelt 
conviction touching his nature and attributes, that 
you begin to know what and how much he is to your 
soul, or where you stand in your relations to him. 

Pass, now, from yourself to others, and you find 
that the birth of positive conceptions in your own 
mind dates the birth of your influence for good over 
others. You must get a foothold somewhere before 
you can ever lift men. Before you can teach the ig- 
norant, you must have instructed your own mind. 
The very first thing that a seeker after truth desires 
to know is, what you have discovered to be true. The 
foundations of his faith are to be hewn from the 
same quarry from which you blasted yours. It is the 
positive element in your convictions of duty which 
charms and impresses him. 

The positiveness of conviction also gauges the in? 
fluence of an organization. No church can live ou 
negation. A think-as-you-please church is not a tern- 



84 POSITIVENESS OF BELIEF: 

pie: it is a heap, an accumulation of individual 
atoms, which the veriest accident will send flying in 
all directions. There is no adhesive power in such 
an organization. It lives as long as one man lives ; 
it lives as long as a circle or caste lives ; then dies. 
That community of conviction and feeling which 
might have magnetized it, and caused every part to 
adhere to its • neighbor, is wanting ; and no solid, 
permanent structure is possible. You must have a 
central rallying point and cry, a certain number of 
principles held in common and loved in common, or 
ever an organization can perpetuate itself. A belief 
is, therefore, essential to the very existence and per- 
petuity of the Church. A declaration of principles 
which outlives the teachers, which outlives the taught, 
gathering sanctity as its truth is the more fully per- 
ceived, becomes so dear, that men are willing, at last, 
to die for it. 

If you look carefully into this matter, you will find 
that positiveness of belief is not something foisted 
on to, but a natural outgrowth of, the human mind. 
With here and there an exception, man is eminently 
a creature of belief. He conceives of things sharply, 
and holds on to them tenaciously. He is not content 
with vagueness : uncertainty is torment ; mystery 
piques him. He craves knowledge, data sure and 
satisfactory. You see this characteristic cropping out 
everywhere in history. Martyrs are not an abnormal 
outgrowth. It is not singular that man, made as he 
is, should die for his faith : it would be singular if 
he did r|ot. Man instinctively honors his own intel- 



ITS NEED AND EFFICIENCY. 85 

lect ; trusts in its conclusions ; yea, trusts in them so 
entirely, that he is willing to die for them. There is 
not a drop in all that red sea which the blood of 
those who died for liberty and God filled, but that 
gives the lie to those who scout at creeds and laugh 
at those who give adherence to formulas of faith. 
The fact is, no man has used his intellect rightly un- 
less he has reached certain conclusions which he is 
willing to die for. A man who is tossed about by 
every wind of doctrine ; who is this to-day, and that 
to-morrow, and nothing next day ; who is unsettled 
on every vital point of religion ; who looks with equal 
favor on opposite theories of life ; who, out of the 
vast bulk of material which God has provided him in 
nature and revelation, can construct no positive sys- 
tem of belief, — is an unnatural production himself. 
Such a person is either an intentional sceptic, or the 
resultant of peculiar and exceptional combinations in 
temperament and circumstances. Every transition 
period is filled with such men. They are the product 
and representatives of mental confusion, and not of 
knowledge. This city is full of such people. They 
are the bubbles that the agitation of the waters here 
fifty years ago occasioned. They do not represent 
the natural and normal posture of the human mind 
toward God. They represent a revolution, and a 
revolution not altogether honorable. They represent 
a philosophy, which, like a bird with one wing, is un- 
able to mount to an altitude whence a correct view 
can be had of what it seeks to know. They represent 
theological nightmare and fever. 



86 POSITIVENESS OF BELIEF: 

I need not analyze the past history of the Common 
wealth, theologically considered. Some of you know 
it from observation and personal participation, all of 
you from tradition. You know the position that Bos- 
ton took when it seceded from the ancestral faith. It 
virtually said, " We are tired of carrying anchors on 
our ships : ships were made to sail, not to rest forever, 
lashed to the same old pier. Come, let us throw the 
cumbrous things overboard." I will not say but that 
the fathers did carry a little too much old iron on 
their decks ; that they did not ballast a little too 
deeply for swift sailing ; that lighter ships than they 
builded out of the live-oak of their times were not 
at last needed for the rapid commerce of ideas among 
men, and the promulgation of the humanities. I 
would not fight with any over this, but grant it. But 
these would-be reformers not only threw the anchors 
overboard, but they went to work and tore out many 
of the heaviest timbers, and started many of the bolts 
that the fathers used so plentifully in the frame ; and 
the work of disintegration — some call it progress — 
has gone on, until some of their churches can scarcely 
be held together. They lack the cohesion which is 
found alone in a positive belief. Where there is 
nothing to believe, there is nothing into which to 
educate a congregation. Similarity of views, and the 
quick sympathy that springs therefrom, are impossi- 
ble. There is no evangelizing power in such a church. 
A gospel of negation, of doubt, of denial, has not in 
it a single element wherewith to win converts, save 
the love of destructiveness ; and this sentiment is not 



ITS NEED AND EFFICIENCY, 87 

afc home in this age. Tiie age is a positive one. It is 
a radical, outspoken age. It is not startled at down- 
right assertion. It is a constructive age, and clamors 
for granite, — something to perforate and chisel and 
put together. You might as reasonably expect a poli- 
tical party in this country to live and thrive without 
a platform, as a church without a creed. A church, 
like a government, must have a declaration of prin- 
ciples. A statement of its convictions, its object, its 
articles of faith, is demanded by the public at large. 
Thoughtful minds desire something to study, to in- 
vestigate, to accept or reject : they demand it as a 
right, and will have it. 

This is especially true, I maintain, in the matter of 
religion. Religion deals v/ith the gravest problems 
of human existence and human destiny. It is based 
upon a positive revelation of God's will to men. It 
attempts to answer the gravest questions man ever 
put to his own soul. The Bible, of all books, is the 
most positive. Heaven and hell are positive concep- 
tions. Joy and sorrow are positive ideas. Christ 
dealt largely, throughout all his teaching, in positive 
assertions : '' He who believeth on me shall be saved ; 
he who believeth not shall be damned." Any Bible 
church must be a church of a bold and unmistakable 
declaration of its views ; any gospel preacher, a man 
of pronounced opinions, not in respect to human 
duties alone, but also in respect to divine govern- 
ment. He must deliver a message which has been 
given him to deliver, whether men will hear or for- 
bear. He has no option in the matter. How to say 



88 POSITIVENESS OF BELIEF: 

it is for him to decide ; but ^vhat to say is not left 
to his knowledge or his taste. The strength of his 
position consists in the fact that he preaches a mys- 
tery, — the mj^stery of God and of godliness ; a mys- 
tery beyond man's conception ; of guilt visited upon 
the guiltless ; a mystery which angels desire to look 
into, and cannot. Consider it from any point of view, 
and the same conclusion is reached. His duty is to 
persuade ; but there can be no persuasion unless it be 
from something positive to something equally posi- 
tive. His ofhce is to convict: but conviction does 
not wait on speculation ; it is not born of doubt, of 
denial, of a mere negative philosophy. To persuade 
a man from crossing the rapids, you must picture the 
horror of the cataract. A Niagara must exist as the 
basis of your anxiety and his peril. The possibility 
of death must be there, or your arguments are power- 
less, and your fear puerile. 

It is a matter of astonishment to me that men can 
think that a Bible church can exist without a creed, a 
fixed system of belief. That creed may not be writ- 
ten ; it may not be expressed in black and white ; if 
written, it may be modest and cautious in its phrase- 
ology : but it must needs be known and taught. The 
Bible enjoins that a man shall be able to give a rea- 
son for the faith which is in him ; but who can give a 
reason for what he does not have ? The thing is im- 
possible ; and the position which some churches take 
on the matter is simply anti-biblical and anti-common- 
sense. Every church should say wdiat it thinks of 
Christ ; say it implicitly ; say it so that the public 



ITS NEED AND EFFICIENCY. 89 

can get at its meaning, and be able to intelligently 
accept or intelligently reject its position. This church 
owes it to every one of you who worship here, owes 
it to the city of which it is a part, owes it to God 
and to the advancement of correct knowledge on the 
most important of all questions, to distinctly avow 
its behef ; if for no other reason than that its errors 
may be detected, and its power as an example felt. 
And I believe that men of all opinions here Avill at 
last come to accept this view as the correct one, and 
insist on its adoption. 

The position of reticence and negation, which is 
held to and held up by some as the only liberal 
position, and the only one tenable by a progressive 
thinker, has this, furthermore, to be urged against it : 
it tends to bring the Bible into disrepute, lessen its 
authority upon the masses, and loosen all the bands 
with which it supports and braces the public con- 
science. The Bible is a book of assertions. It is 
not a book of suggestion, but of command. It 
speaks from the high level of superior wisdom and 
authority. In it is published a system of moral gov- 
ernment, the strictness of which is emphasized by 
rewards and punishment. It does not come to man 
and say, '*> Examine me: " it says, '' Obey me." It 
looks you squarely in the face, and says, " Dost thou 
believe ? Hast thou faith ? " There is only one way 
in which to answer such authoritativeness, such 
directness of interrogation. It is with yes or no. 
God will not be mocked with evasion, and sly defini- 
tion, and double-meaning phraseology ; nor will he 



90 POSITIVENESS OF BELIEF: 

endure a cunning reticence. He makes confession of 
our dependence on him obligatory ; and the confession 
must be full and definite. Nor will the plea of igno- 
rance avail. The path to all needed knowledge is so 
plain, that the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not 
err therein. 

Now, friends, this can be truly said concerning the 
orthodox churches, — they are frank and implicit in 
the confession of their faith. They deal honestly with 
the public. They secure no attendance by accommo- 
dating men's crotchets. They bid for no patronage 
by their silence. They declare doctrines wdiich are 
harsh and hard to the natural man. Their preachers 
preach a gospel as it has been delivered to them in the 
Bible, and not as it has been manufactured for them 
in Boston. We tell you of a God-Man, — God in the 
flesh, — Jesus of Nazareth, who died for your sins ; and 
the salvation we proclaim, so far as it has an earthly 
locality, comes out of Calvary, and not out of Music 
Hall. I know of what the American people are made ; 
and I know, that, upon reflection, they can but admire 
this frankness. You know what the history of this 
church has been. I instance it simply as an illustra- 
tion. Its foundations were laid when the world of 
theological thought rocked as with the throes of an 
earthquake. It was built in open and confessed an- 
tagonism to prevailing opinion. Its walls were pushed 
up in the very teeth of the whirlwind of abuse which 
swept and eddied round it. It was cursed and spat 
upon. Volleys of argument were delivered at it. The 
keenest shafts of satire smote against it. The cul- 



ITS NEED AND EFFICIENCY. 91 

ture and wit of the city made it their target. Its 
pastor was maligned, and its members pronounced 
clowns and ])igots. But now mark the result. Did 
it flinch ? Did it modify one of its offensive doctrines ? 
Did it shade down a single formula ? Did it pacify 
the public censure by silence ? No ! It Avrote a con- 
fession of faith strong as the Westminster Catechism 
itself, and nailed it to its front-doors, and said to wit 
and wag, priest and savan, " That is our belief, and 
Ave are not ashamed of it." It fought its fight of 
faith under the banner of the fathers whose piety 
made New England what it is, — that banner which 
is over us to-da}', and which, I trust, will fly here for- 
ever to the latest generation ; and the motto on that 
banner was, and to-day is, " Not by works of right- 
eousness which we have done, but according to His 
mercy, he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, 
and renewing of the Holy Ghost." 

Now, in taking this position, this church, I claim, 
did two things : first, it honored the Bible ; and, sec- 
ondly, it acted fairly with the public. If wrong in its 
position, the wrong was more easily detected, and 
hence less hurtful, because of the frankness of the 
avowal. If right, it w^as the more readily perceived, 
and hence more powerful for good. 

I know full well that the charge of bigotry is often 
brought against the orthodox churches on account of 
their creeds. This has been the great arsenal from 
which the Joves of satire have invariably stolen their 
thunderbolts. The bolt has often been too heavy for 
them to hurl, and more than once has exploded in 
their own hands as they struggled to lift it. 



92 POSITIVENESS OF BELIEF: 

Now, I do not doubt, that, in the orthodox churches, 
narrow-mmded men can be found. Indeed, I thmk 
I have seen some myself so narrow-minded, that you 
had to hold them up and look at them sidewise to 
see that they had any mind at all. Illiberal men, I 
dare to say, can be discovered among our number, 
who are harsh and hard in their judgments, bit- 
ter toward opponents, and severe against the mis- 
taken. I think that there may be men in this city 
who candidly doubt whether Universalists and Unita- 
rians are within the pale of possible conversion, and 
who practically consign them to the mysterious dis- 
pensation of God concerning the reprobate, rather 
than enclose them in the arms of charity and hopeful 
prayer. Some theologians interpret the doctrine of 
election, I notice, only in the way of damnation, and 
not at all in the way of salvation. They make it an 
awful doctrine, — one to beat men down with, to 
crush and pulverize them with, and rob all loving 
hearts of the magnificent hope, that, in the freedom 
and swing of God's sovereignty, multitudes shall be 
saved by the unknown operations of the Holy Ghost, 
and the exercise of that mercy which in measure 
is infinite, and the outgoings of which are often hid- 
den. I received a note last winter, warning me not 
to so phrase my devotions that the heterodox and sin- 
ners should feel that they could join in that portion 
of the service intended especially for the saints ! Just 
as if a certain class has the right to monopolize the 
devotions of the sanctuary, and say to the ignorant, 
the poor, the bui^dened, the darkened in mind, ''Here, 



ITS NEED AXD EFFICIENCY. 93 

you stand aside for a few moments ; stop your ears, 
choke down your sobs, while we professed Christians 
do a little worship on our own account." That is 
higotry ; and I hope the person who wrote that 
letter has been converted by God's sweet grace to 
more correct and kindly yiews of sanctuary worship 
ere this, and feels to-day that all the burdened in the 
world can say with her, " Our Father who art in 
heaven." 

But, because bigoted and illiberal men can be found 
in the orthodox churches, it does not follow that they 
are exclusively found in them, nor in any greater 
proportion than in other organizations. This whole 
matter depends a deal upon what definition you give 
to bigotry. If to believe any truth with one's whole 
soul is to be a bigot, then most orthodox Christians 
are indeed bigots, and their creed a compilation of 
intense bigotry ; for we do most heartily believe what 
we advocate. And I notice that this is the definition 
which many give to the term. How false it is, you 
all know. Intelligent espousal of is not an unreason- 
able adherence to a cause. Belief in a truth is not 
blind advocacy. Faith is not credulity. On the 
other hand, you have doubtless observed that a new 
definition is given now-a-days to liberalism. To be a 
liberal, in certain circles, you must have no fixed be- 
lief in any thing yourself, nor admit that any intelli- 
gent person can have. You must assume that the 
oracles of knowledge have been surrendered by the 
gods to you and a few others, and that the rest of 
the world are incapable of correct criticism and accu- 



94 POSITIVENESS OF BELIEF: 

rate judgment. You must satirize whatever is most 
sacred and conservative in men's belief, laugh at all 
conclusions the world reached prior to 1840, and de- 
nounce as orthodox bigots such as may think differ- 
ently than yourself. And a strange thing have I seen 
and noted since coming to this city. I have seen a 
liberalism superlatively narrow-minded, and those 
who denounced denunciation dealing in it the most. 
Protesting against the shooting of arrows at brethren 
as barbarous and illiberal, the strings of their own 
bows are ceaselessly vibrant with the rapidity of their 
shots. 

No ! true liberalism does not find its advocates and 
exemplars among those who now loudly appropriate 
this title. Back of all true liberality is a positive 
conviction ; a sharply-drawn line to deflect from in 
order to make the deflection worth any thing as a 
test of temper and charity. A man who yields does 
not yield at all unless there is in him a strong motive 
not to yield ; and the value of the courtesy is gradu- 
ated solely by the effort it cost to grant it. And 
these theological and metaphysical jugglers, who meet 
to practise sleight of hand, and toss the problems 
of life and destiny as players do a ball, for their 
own amusement ; who yield without giving up any 
thing ; who saj^ " See, we grant you all for the sake 
of free opinion," — when, in point of fact, they never 
had any downright, well-settled opinion, — are not lib- 
erals: they are intellectual shufflers, caring no more 
for the theories they advance than gamblers do for 
the pieces of pasteboard that they shuffle so nimbly. 



ITS NEED AND EFFICIENCY. 95 

A man who does not care what he thinks himself, 
or what his boy thinks, or what views society adopts 
for its guidance, cannot be a liberal ; but he who 
does care, both for his own safety and the safety of 
others, what opinions prevail, who is intensely inter- 
ested and wrought upon by what he regards as evil 
instruction, and yet who treats with courtesy and 
listens patiently to him who promulgates what he 
regards as error, is the true and the only real liberal. 
If this eminently just distinction should be kept in 
mind, how many a head would be stripped of its 
stolen plumes, and how many another would be 
crowned with an enduring wreath ! 

It has also been said more than once in my hearing 
since coming to this city, — and the saying has gone 
out to the world, even to foreign parts, — that the or- 
thodox churches of New England do not allow any 
freedom and latitude of expression in their pulpits, but 
fetter their teachers with the bands and cords of old 
and erroneous interpretation. 

If this were true, then would it indeed be a grievous 
charge, and grievously would the churches answer it. 
For growth in knowledge is the organic law of piety, 
as it is a command to it. Knowledge of God expands 
as the human mind expands ; and God will doubtless 
aj)pear more and more worthy of honor and glory as 
human intelligence increases through the ages. Ap- 
prehension of Jehovah, and understanding of his 
attributes, are as a stream which widens and deepens 
its channel as it flows. Every advance in science, 
every invention in mechanics, every exploration of 



96. POSITIVENESS OF BELIEF: 

the earth's surface, every research of history which 
brings the tombs of ancient kingdoms to light, every 
addition to human thought which gives the world 
richer and fuller forms of expression, will contribute 
to manifest God more clearly to the intellect and 
heart of men. Not to fetter and retard, but to eman- 
cipate, and assist its teacher in acquisition of knowl- 
edge, should, therefore, be the policy of every church ; 
knowing this well, that what they contribute to him 
in the form of grain will finally come back to them 
in the form of well-prepared loaves. And this — to 
encourage their teachers to new and fuller invest!-, 
gation and discovery of truth and the application of 
it — was of old the characteristic of the Puritan 
churches. I will recite to you the words of the ven- 
erable Robinson to the Pilgrims which he uttered as 
their pastor as they were about to depart for Amer- 
ica : — 

" If God reveal any thing to you by any other in- 
strument of his, be as ready to receive it as ever you 
were to receive any truth by my ministry ; for I am 
verily persuaded, I am very confident, the Lord has 
more truth yet to break forth out of his holy word. 
For my part, I cannot sufficiently bewail the condi- 
tion of the reformed churches, who are come to a 
period in religion, and will go, at present, no further 
than the instruments of their reformation. . . . This 
is a misery much to be lamented ; for though they 
were burning and shining lights in their times, yet 
they penetrated not into the whole counsel of God, 
but, were they now living, would be as willing to em- 



ITS NEED AND EFFICIENCY. 97 

brace further light as that which they first received. 
I beseech you remember it, 'tis an article of your 
church covenant that you be ready to receive what- 
ever truth shall be made known to you from the 
written word of God." 

This was the spirit of the most advanced of the 
Puritan leaders in theology ; and it will be a fatal day 
to their successors when they forget it. 

Now, my friends, you know that intellectual free- 
dom is the sole condition of intellectual growth. 
You must give a man some freedom of swing if you 
wish to get the best pace out of him. A preacher of 
divine truth, either as it respects the science of moral 
government or its application to human affairs, who 
stands in fear of any one, who feels that the pews 
are watching him to pounce upon some novel form of 
expressing an old truth or the utterance of a new one, 
is a man that will never grow. And as the teacher 
is dwarfed, so will the pupils be. Let the preacher, 
on the other hand, feel that his audience sympathizes 
with him in his attempt to push ahead into new fields 
of thought and expression, let them encourage sug- 
gestion as well as deduction, a style of preaching 
calculated to quicken their own minds to think for 
themselves, instead of burdening their memories with 
divisions and sub-divisions, and they will climb to- 
gether the shining steps of Nature and of God. Their 
piety will be deep because it is intelligent. It is very 
easy to mistake ignorant piety for profound piety; 
just as often, in boating, one fancies the stream to be 
deep because the water is so muddy that he cannot 
see the bottom. 



98 POSITIVENESS OF BELIEF: 

Now, what is the position and conduct of the 
evangelical churches of the several denominations in 
New England in reference to this matter? With 
here and there an exception, I believe it to be emi- 
nently satisfactory. It has been my good fortune to 
serve in four strictly orthodox churches of the old 
type ; and never in either did I experience the least 
embarrassment. The oldest Christians were invaria- 
bly my warmest friends and stoutest supporters ; and 
I do not think that any one who has often heard me 
preach would say that I allow myself to be very much 
cramped in expression of what I believe to be true 
through fear of any order of men living. And I 
believe that this is the characteristic experience of 
all New-England preachers. On the questions of 
slavery and temperance, the sabbath-school question, 
the associations of young men, and kindred ones, 
questions of organization and administration both, 
touching the ver3^ vitals of the* Church, running coun- 
ter to many long-cherished -opinions, the pulpits have 
spoken with a clearness and boldness unparalleled in 
the history of any other church or people. Evangeli- 
cal scholarship, also, has been original as well as accu- 
rate. It has not contented itself with repeating the 
formulas of the fathers : it has gladly accepted every 
discovery in science as soon as it was well established ; 
yea, it has contributed not a little to such discoveries 
themselves. The variety, the originality, the indi- 
viduality, of the preaching in the evangelical churches 
of America to-day, are matters of world-wide remark. 

Now, my hearers, churches which have introduced 



ITS NEED AND EFFICIENCY. 99 

SO many reforms in the last fifty years as the orthodox 
churches of America have ; which have encouraged 
sucli students of science as Hickox and Dana and 
Silliman ; wliich have fostered a pulpit, that, for 
power, originality, and even idiosyncrasies of expres- 
sion, is noted the world over, and are to-day giving 
the highest honors and warmest welcome to the bold- 
est speakers and most independent thinkers, — we say, 
and do not fear that any will attempt to gainsay it, — 
we say that such churches cannot justly be called 
bigoted or intolerant ; and those who say it, say it to 
the exposure of their own ignorance, and the mani- 
festation of their own intolerance. 

I have now spoken to you concerning the need and 
some of the influences of a positive belief. I have 
striven to meet some of the charges made against 
those who hold to their convictions in respect to the 
Bible and God. I ask you, in conclusion, to note the 
happy effect of a positive conviction upon the nature. 
It is undeniably true, that we live in an age of great 
mental activity. A thousand questions of duty invite 
us to daily decisions. A thousand problems challenge 
investigation. The age is tempestuous with specula- 
tions, and every man is the centre of converging 
whirlwinds. I do not envy that person who has not 
lashed himself to some granite column for support. 
When mental uncertainty has passed beyond a certain 
point, it is not the source of growth, but of torture. 
There are mysteries in religion that we can never 
understand. Never by searching shall we find out 



100 POSITIYENESS OF BELIEF. 

God. In him are depths no thought of man may ever 
sound. Life, too, is intricate ; and not seldom must 
we grope blindly, and feel our way along as a blind 
man feels his way, keeping close to the friendly wall. 
But, on the other hand, all that is essential for us to 
know, all that is needed for our guidance and conso- 
lation, is within our reach. I urge upon you all, and 
especially upon you who are young, to be positive in 
your belief. Base not your faith on ignorance, but 
on an intimate acquaintance with the inspired volume. 
Be diligent students of the Word. Scepticism has 
two sources in our- day, — an overweening pride of in- 
tellect, which disdains to sit as an humble learner at 
the feet of God ; and superficial knowledge of the 
Scriptures. These are the two fountains of bitterness 
from which flow waters that quench no thirst, and 
drinking which you will imbibe fever and delirium. 
Avoid both ; and remember that no pilgrim ever went 
to the oracle of God, seeking needed knowledge and 
wisdom how to live, bringing in one hand humility, 
and in the other gratitude, as offerings to its shrine, 
but that received at last, although at first its face was 
as marble, the needed message. Cold and impertur- 
bable was the countenance of the God at first : but as 
the suppliant gazed, praying as he gazed, a blush 
stole over the chiselled features ; the stony orbs re- 
turned in love the suppliant's gaze ; the closed lips 
opened, and the long-sought words of wisdom broke 
on the listener's ear. 



SABBATH MORJfING, APRIL 9, 1871. 



SERMOK 



SUBJECT. -CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP! WHAT CONSTITUTES FITNESS FOR IT 7 
AND WHEN SHOULD IT BE ENTERED UPON? 

" Then they that gladly received his word were baptized ; 

AND the same day THERE WERE ADDED UNTO THEM ABOUT THREE 
THOUSAND SOULS." — Acts ii. 41. 

IRE JOICE that many of you in this congregation, 
enlightened by the Spirit concerning the sinful- 
ness of your natures, and made sensitive to the claims 
of the divine law upon you, have, by repentance of 
sin, and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, entered into 
filial relation with God. You have been born in the 
new birth, — a far nobler birth than that after the 
flesh. You have begun to live a new life, — the life 
of faith, of holiness, and, I trust, of joy. You have 
been introduced to a new world of experience and 
duty. You are like birds, which, born in vocal bond- 
age, find themselves, after long years of silence, on 
some spring morning, suddenly endowed with the 
power of song. A " new song " has been put into 
your mouths ; and your spiritual natures are no longer 
dumb, but tunefully active. You have not only come 



102 CHURCH-MEMBEESHIP: 

to many new and beautiful exercises, but also to the 
apjDrehension of new duties ; or, if not to new duties, 
to duties never until now recognized. Many an obli- 
gation hitherto unnoted is now discerned. Judgment 
and conscience, which heretofore have lain in a half- 
dormant state, are now thoroughly wide awake. They 
will never sleep again. Activity henceforth will be 
their normal condition. The eyes of that censorship 
which God imposes on our conduct when we become 
his children are never shut : they glow with the 
energy of divine discrimination. Their lids never 
droop : weariness and slumber never weigh them 
down. They stand open and watchful forever like 
God's own. 

Now, among the first questions of duty and expe- 
diency which arise before the converted mind is this 
of church-membership, — of making public profession 
of one's faith in God ; for the two, in our day, are 
essentially one and the same. What constitutes fit- 
ness for church-membership ? and how soon after con- 
version should it be entered upon ? These are ques- 
tions I propose to discuss before you this morning, in 
the hope that some of you may be assisted to a fuller 
imderstanding of your duty in the premises than you 
now have. 

Before one can ascertain whether he should connect 
himself with the Church, he must inform himself as to 
its nature and object. I grant that the performance 
of a duty imperfectly apprehended is better than no 
performance at all ; but better, far better is it when 
the duty is clearly apprehended, and the person is 



WHAT CONSTITUTES FITXESS FOR IT? 103 

quickened to its fulfilment by a strong, intelligent 
conviction. 

First, then, I remark of the Church, touching its 
nature, that it is a holy fellowship, composed of 
people inspired with the same motive of faith in 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and obedience to God. The 
ground and cause of this fellowship is purely spirit- 
ual. It is not a mental union nor a social union 
that unites them, but a sphitual one. They are held 
together, not by earthly, but by heavenly ties. " One 
Lord, one faith, one baptism," is the key-note of the 
one song which is breathed from every heart, and that 
trembles on every lip. They walk in company, clasp- 
ing each his neighbor's hand, because they are all 
going one way, all travelling toward the same spot. 
Amid perils, the danger is in common ; in joy, the 
gladness is felt alike in every heart. 

Again: the Church is the agent of God. He has 
gathered it, not as waters are gathered in inland lakes, 
and whose highest use is to reflect the heavens, beau- 
tify the landscape, and minister to the activities and 
hfe bred within itself : he has gathered it rather as 
water is gathered into a pond, not to remain, but to 
flow out and be utilized for the good of men ; so that 
the poor bless it for the bread it furnishes them, and 
the houses it enables them to build. The fellowship 
of a church is not that of mere knowledge and hope : 
it is a fellowship in activities and labors and sacrifices ; 
a fellowship of toil and of suffering. Its object is to 
afford its membershijj the opportunity of combined 
effort for the good of others ; to organize labor, and 



104 CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP: 

make the energies of each more potent by uniting 
them to others ; to make agencies more efficient by 
the multiplication of agents. It is only an imitation 
of the wisdom seen in Nature, which seeks through 
the principle of combination to produce grand results. 
Her mountains are composed of individual atoms; 
her oceans and seas and rivers, of separate drops ; 
the air, by the mingling of many elements ; and all 
her noblest effects are produced by the co-operation 
of many causes. The Church is not merely a fellow- 
ship : it is an organization. Its foundations do not 
rest on personal election and individual preference, 
but on the immovable granite of a divinely-imposed 
obligation. Its object is, not the growth and happi- 
ness of its members alone, but the glory of God 
through the conversion of men. 

What, then, let us inquire, constitutes fitness for 
church-membership ? When is a person ready for its 
fellowship ? When is it obligatory upon him to join 
it, and thereby swell the volume of its organized 
activities ? 

I answer, Conversion constitutes the ground of 
fitness. Every soul ' born of the Spirit is ready for 
the fellowship of the Christian Church. The Scrip- 
tures are very implicit upon this point, both in the 
Avay of terms prescribed and of examples. Repent- 
ance and faith are everywhere proclaimed as the con- 
ditions of salvation, and therefore of church-member- 
ship. And I wish you to observe that these are the 
only conditions. Whoever has repented of his sins, 
and has intrusted his soul to Christ for salvation, 



• WHAT CONSTITUTES FITXESS FOR IT? 105 

must be admitted to the sacraments and privileges 
of the Christian Church upon application. This is 
the only scriptural view that can be taken of the 
matter. No individual church can justly refuse such 
an applicant. God has not left it optional with the 
churches whether they will receive such applicants or 
not. As it is the duty of all to apply for membership, 
so is it the duty of the churches to bestow it upon all 
who have complied with the gospel conditions. 

I would, if possible, emphasize this position, because 
some churches, through their committees of confer- 
ence, seem to act as if they had the right to elect 
touching their membership, and pronounce who 
should and who should not join it. Such should be 
reminded that it is not their Church, but God's 
Church, to wliich the candidates have come seeking 
admission. It is not tlieir table, but the Lord's table, 
from which the sacrament is served ; and it is not 
such as satisfy their demands, but such as satisfy the 
demands of Scripture, who are entitled to a seat at 
the supper. The only legitimate subject of inquisi- 
tion for such a committee, the only authority granted 
them by the Church, or that can be granted them, on 
scriptural grounds, is to ascertain whether the appli- 
cant has truly and conscientiously compHed with the 
gospel terms, — repentance and faith. If he has, 
then he must be admitted to that church to which 
the Spirit has inclined him. Questions that concern 
the future government of the conduct, questions in 
theology as a science, questions that do not go to 
furnish dbect e^ddence for or against the fact of re- 



106 CHURCH-MEMBEESHIP: 

generation, are entirelj" irrelevant and unwarranted. 
The only way to go behind the candidate's per- 
sonal testimony is by doubting his intelligence, or im- 
peaching his honest}^ If he is intelligent enough to 
know what repentance and faith mean, and is not a 
hypocrite, then must he be admitted to the Church. 
To keep him a single day from the Lord's table is to 
debar him of a privilege indisputably his ; is to 
" offend " one of Christ's " little ones." How grave 
an offence this is, you who are familiar with Scrip- 
ture know. 

I have thus far been spealdng more especially of the 
Church, — its nature and duty. We will now turn 
the subject round, and look at it from the other side, 
— the duty and relation to the Church of the converts 
themselves. 

The question is often asked the pastor by those 
converted under his charge, " When should converts 
join the Church? " To which there is, as it seems to 
me, but one reply : "As soon as convenient after con- 
version." All unnecessary delay is of the nature of 
sin ; and this will be seen when you consider, — 

1. That no duty should be neglected. 

As I have said, church-membership is not optional 
to a Christian. " Do this in remembrance of Me " is 
as much a command as " Thou shalt not steal." Pub- 
lic confession is obligatory upon every disciple. It is 
made by Christ a test of love, — a test of acceptance 
at the last day : " He who confesseth me before men, 
him will I also confess before my Father who is in 
heaven ; o.nd he who confesseth me not before men, 



WHAT COXSTITUTES FITNESS FOR IT? 107 

him will I not co7ifess before my Father who is in 
heaven.'' You see, friends, that I am not speaking 
along the line of my own fallible judgment, but along . 
the line of God's inspired word ; and I pray that the 
word may be received of you, and dwell in you richly. 
It is not, as you see, a matter of choice, of mere pref- 
erence, of personal inclination, whether you who are 
converted, who feel yourselves to have been born of the 
Spirit, shall publicly profess your faith or not. You 
have no election in the matter : God forbids you to 
have. Duty comes to you, not in the form of a sug- 
gestion, but in the form of a command. To defer the 
commanded action is to prolong disobedience. 

2. Experience, as we should expect, favors com- 
pliance with the injunction of Scripture. Go to the 
churches from one end of the land to the other, and 
investigate this matter, and jou. will find that those 
disciples that have not made public profession of 
their faith, are not united with any church-organiza- 
tion, are stunted in their own spiritual development, 
and almost useless as co-laborers. Exceptions there 
may be; but, as .a rule, you would find this true. 
There is something radically defective, friends, in a 
piety that shrinks from the light of acknowledgment. 
A man who follows Christ so far off as to refuse to be 
known as his follower, can do little good, and naust 
do much hurt, to his cause. If one of your children 
had never been seen in its mother's arms, never stood 
in 3'our family-circle, never been in your house, never 
been called by your name, who would suppose it to 
be your child ? And so, if a man never calls himself 



108 CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP: 

a Christian, is never seen amid God's children, or at 
the family-table, or in the household of faith, who 
would suppose that he is a Christian at all? The 
happy, the honored children are those who bear the 
father's name, and stand acknowledged in his pres- 
ence. For them provision is made. Their growth is 
duly ministered unto. They receive the full benefit 
of the family connection. They become useful. 
Non-membership is also a kind of denial of Christ. 
It is one form of opposition. The son that does not 
acknowledge the father when the occasion demands 
acknowledgment, denies the father. Every refusal to 
bear testimony for Christ is a denial of Christ. It is 
Peter's sin over again, — a sin to be repented of bit- 
terly with tears. 

And now, just at this point, I pause in the exposi- 
tion of the subject to say. If any of you are striving 
to serve Christ in secrecy, strive no more ; for you are 
striving to do an impossible thing. No follower of 
his can wear a mask. He allows no soldier without 
his uniform in his army. The very first step in the 
line of usefulness is publicity. If you are covering 
up your faith, if you think you can be his child and 
not bear his name, you are mistaken. He will disown 
you, as unworthy of him, at the last day. You are 
planning to live a Christian life without fulfilling a 
Christian's duty ; and God will never bless you in such 
an attempt. You are the very person to whom the 
words of the Master himself apply : '' He that is not 
with me is against me." Do you hear Christ saying 
Ibis to you, — you who are concealing yourselves 



WHAT CONSTITUTES FITNESS FOR IT? 109 

while the battle rages ? Can you who crouch and hide 
yourselves amid the impenitent, and are undistin- 
guished from them, hear tjie voice, clearer than any 
bugle, lifting itself up and making itself heard amid 
the roar of contention, saying, " He who is not pub- 
licly for me in this great work, he who fights not 
openly for me -in this critical hour of my fortunes, 
must be looked upon as being against me : I will 
never crown any head above which my banner does 
not float" ? 

3. Again: the examples of gospel history favor 
this position. 

Two things are observable in Scripture history, — 
the suddenness of the conversions, and the quickness 
with which the converts made public confession of 
their faith. Recall the history of the eunuch's con- 
version. Directly he was convicted of the truth, he 
queried of Philip — But I will read the narrative 
to you, that you may have it fresh in your memo- 
ries : — 

" And, as they went on their way, the}^ came unto 
a certain water. And the eunuch said. See, here is 
water : what doth hinder me to be baptized ? " Now, 
mark the reply of the apostle : " And Philip said, 
If thou belie vest with all thy heart, thou may est. 
And he answered, and said, I believe that Jesus 
Christ is the Son of God. And he commanded the 
chariot to stand still : and they went down both into 
the water, both Philip and the eunuch ; and he bap- 
tized him." 

Take Saul's conversion, and the promptness with 



110 CHURCH-MEMBEESHIP: 

whicli lie acknowledged the Lord's mastership over 
him in the words, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to 
do?" or the case of the three thousand at the Pen- 
tecostal season, who "joined the Church the same 
day," — the day of their conversion. All point in 
one and the same direction ; viz., that church-mem- 
bership as an act should follow swift upon conversion. 
Between the date of one's conversion unto Christ 
and public acknowledgment of the same there should 
be no delay, no season of doubt and hesitation. So 
soon as the babe is born, let it go to the mother's 
breast. 

" But," I hear certain of you inquire, " do you not 
think it advisable for young converts to wait a while, 
in order to see if they will hold on?^'' I answer em- 
phatically. No ! If not converted, see that they wait 
until they are ; but if God's Spirit has begun the 
work of grace in their hearts, albeit in its inception it 
be no larger than the " smallest of all seeds," let them 
at once connect themselves with the Church. If holi- 
ness is germinant in them, then give it the proper lo- 
cation and nurture at once. Why, consider this posi- 
tion in reference to the converts themselves. Is not 
the church-relation a help to Christians ? " Certain- 
ly," you say ; " a great help." Well, I respond, when 
do Christians need it most? — when j^oung or old, 
weak or strong, tried or untried ? Church-member- 
ship is a restraint. What class most needs the influ- 
ence of such a check? Most assuredly the young, 
and such as experience has not seasoned into thought- 
fulness. When is the conservative influence of a 



WHAT CONSTITUTES FITNESS FOR IT? HI 

pledge most beneficial to a reformed drunkard ? Un- 
doubtedly, the first few months after his reformation. 
While his appetite is only partially subdued ; his old 
comrades persistent ; his new habit of life uncon- 
firmed ; his temptations, because of his surroundings 
and his inward weakness, many, — then it is that his 
pledge — the thought that he has solemnly given his 
promise not to drink — strengthens him, and more 
than once saves him from fatal lapse. Well, church- 
membership is one form of a pledge ; and many and 
many a time has it saved the young convert from fall- 
ing. I have stood on a mountain, sheltered behind 
its projection of granite, when the winds tore up the 
very soil, and the young oak-plants and pines were 
wrenched out of the earth and sent flying, until the 
very air above my head was darkened with their torn 
foliage, and fragments of wood, and hissing gravel; 
and, not thirty feet from vfhere I crouched, an old 
sturdy oak stood steady and immovable as in the 
hush of a perfect calm, roaring out its hoarse defiance 
to the gale that it despised, and saying, " Come on, 
ye devils of the cloud ! ye can't move me. I have 
twined my roots around the everlasting rocks ; and, 
while I am vital, no power but that which established 
the mountain itself can pull me down." And so it is 
with you. There are some of you who are young in 
years, and weak in your virtue. You need protection. 
Left imsheltered and exposed, you would be swept 
away. And others of you are seasoned in every fibre : 
your faith is rooted in the Everlasting, and the sources 
of ample resistance to the fiercest temptations are 



112 CHUECH-MEMBEESHIP: 

within you ; and all I ask is that the churches recog- 
nize this difference in the condition of those whom 
God spiritually has given to their care, and grant 
protection to those who need it, and when they need 
it most. 

There is one relation to which membership is an 
introduction, the value and importance of which, to a 
young convert, cannot be over-estimated. I refer to 
the pastoral. The pastor of a church is, in a peculiar 
sense, the convert's friend. To him he can narrate 
the past experiences of his life and his present temp- 
tations with a freedom prompted by a confidence that 
he is speaking to the official re]3resentative of God, 
whose very position makes him sympathetic and reti- 
cent as infinite mercy itself. The confidences that a 
pastor receives are the most solemn trusts committed 
to his care. Held sacred in life, they lie down with 
him in death. Between him and the erring, the 
weak, and the ignorant of his flock is a bond of sym- 
pathy such as is felt in no other circumstance or con- 
dition of life. Through it there comes to him that 
profound knowledge which he needs of the workings 
of the human heart, the ceaseless energy and activity 
of evil in the world, and the power of the Holy Ghost. 
The evidences of man's depravity and of God's abid- 
ing love he reads on pages of human experience un- 
folded before his eyes, — pages that are often blotted 
with tears, and traced from side to side with the record 
of sins persisted in and sins repented of : and he re- 
ceives a wisdom he can receive from no other source ; 
nay, not froili the Bible itself. He thus is made wise 



WHAT CONSTITUTES FITNESS FOR IT? 113 

in counsel, and capable to advise. By him the igno- 
rant are enlightened, the weak strengthened, the wa- 
vering in faith confirmed ; and they who came in the 
very frenzy of despair are calmed and cheered by the 
replacement of a hope which they thought had faded 
from their sky forever. There are words that no voice 
can speak so well as the father's. The paternal char- 
acter and position are needed to properly emphasize 
the utterance. Maternity, also, has its sphere ; and 
certain confidences can be breathed nowhere so freely 
as on the mother's bosom, and beneath the sweet 
complacency of a mother's face. Friendship, too, has 
its rank in the economy of beneficence ; and love, by 
its touch and voice, can alone assuage some sorrows. 
And yet to some, and in certain conditions of life and 
stages of experience, a pastor can be and do what nei- 
ther father nor mother, friend nor lover, can be and 
do. To him as to no one else can the revelation of 
weakness and ignorance be made. To him can the 
story of guilt and fear as to no one else be confided. 
From him, as through the medium elected of God, can 
come direction, warning, entreaty, and command, as 
no other one may express it. Speaking as the chosen 
messenger of God, his words are clothed with a dig- 
nity and solemnity derived at once from the character 
and of&ce of the speaker ; and the listener receives 
them with a patience, attention, and gratitude which 
the utterances of none other could command. 

To this tender, gracious, most conservative of all 
relations, honored of men, and blessed of God, I urge 
that converts be admitted at once. When young ir 



114 CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP: 

faith, when most sensitive to appeal, most grateful 
for instruction, and fullest of needs, place them be- 
neath the guidance and loving control of him who in 
the providence of God, and by reason of his training 
and office, can be more than father or mother to 
their souls. Never is a shepherd so truly a shepherd 
as when he stands amid a multitude of his lambs, 
and answers their bleatings by scattering among them 
the herbage he has gathered for their supply. They 
will love his face. They will love his voice. They 
will watch for his coming with eager and restless joy. 
Their growth and well-preserved whiteness will be 
his daily delight. They will fear him only with the 
reverence of love ; and the days, growing sunnier as 
they pass, will add to the confidence of the one, and 
the joy of the other. That Christian who passes the 
first six months of his Christian experience without 
pastoral connection loses what all the years of his life 
cannot make up to him. 

" But," it may be asked, " what if they should fall 
awa}^ and disgrace their profession? " 

This, I respond, can seldom occur if the pastor, of- 
ficers, and members of the Church do their duty. 
Why, what is the Church for ? For what is its cove- 
nant obligation, its pastoral office and relation, its 
solemn sacraments, and its watchful and loving dis- 
cipline, intended and adapted, if not to prevent just 
this danger ? For what is all this costly machinery 
kept up, — costly both in respect to the money and 
time required to run it, — if not to meet just this ter- 
rible possibility ? Is not this the mission and express 



WHAT CONSTITUTES FITNESS FOR IT? 115 

service of the Churcli ? If it slirinks from this work, 
if it releases itself from labors by removing the ne- 
cessity of them when the existence of the necessity 
is divinely intended to continue, what does it do but 
thwart the plan of God, and become as useless and 
uncalled for as a life-assurance society that should 
vote to admit none to its privileges save such as it 
was morally certain would never die ? And yet some 
churches seem to act, as far as they are able, upon 
just this principle ; and make, not repentance and 
faith the terms of admission to them, but such con- 
firmed habits of virtue and solid attainments as cause 
the examining committee to be morally certain that 
they, at least, will never backslide. The hospital is 
filled with patients ; but they are made up of those 
whom the directors have examined, and are confident 
that they have not a particle of disease about them ! 

And here I would interject a word or two concern- 
ing the character and office of the " examining com- 
mittee," as it is called. 

In the first place, then, the term is a misnomer. 
It has an inquisitorial significance which does not in- 
here to the office of the board. It is a committee of 
conference rather than of examination. Its duty is to 
confer with and advise the candidates, not " exam- 
ine " them. The meeting is not one of official inqui- 
sition, but of Christian and fraternal consultation. 
The candidates " examine " the Church in the person 
of its committee as much as the Church examines 
the candidates. The interview is one purely of inter- 
change of opinion and sentiment, and not one of 



. 116 CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP: 

catechism. It should be a pleasant, social, and 
prayerful season of consultation together. 

Again: so far as the conference partakes of the 
character of an examination, it should be, as con- 
ducted on the part of the committee, only touching 
the primary experiences of Christian life. The only 
possible inquisition allowable is that concerning the 
acts of repentance and faith. These being assured, 
the " examination " can go no farther. It is not a 
place for officers of the Church to air their crotchets ; 
for members of the committee to parade their theo- 
logical opinions ; for the pastor to explain the doctrine 
of election ; or for each and all to define their position 
on the sabbath question, the sacred-concert imbroglio^ 
or the much-discussed and ever-changeful relation be- 
tween dancing and piety. There may possibly be for 
unemploj^ed people a place and hour in which these 
profound problems may profitably be discussed ; but 
t\iQj are not found at the conference between the 
Church and such as would join it. There is a higher 
and holier office for the committee to fulfil. I have 
always noted that it is those who are " weak in the 
faith," and whom the apostle enjoins the Church 
should not "receive to doubtful disputations," that 
the brethren on the committee wrangle over the 
most ! 

" But suppose they should be mistaken," you say, 
" as to their experience, and have not been converted 
at all ? " 

This, I reply, can rarely if ever happen if the re- 
vival is properly conducted. The converts who are 



WHAT CONSTITUTES FITNESS FOR IT? 117 

*' deceived as to tlieir hope " are those who have 
never had the grounds of a stable hope pointed out to 
them. They were converted in a hurry ; rushed into 
the kingdom by the pressure of human hands, amid 
excitement and groans. Their " experience " con- 
sists in physical sensation, the tremors of coward- 
ice, the emotions caused by the picturings of an ima- 
gination unduly and unwarrantably excited, — that 
blackest of all draughtsmen, — and a delirium which 
took its cue from its surroundings, and which sub- 
sided with the sights and sounds that caused it. It is 
no evidence that a man has wings and can fly because 
a tornado puts its suction upon him, lifts him up, and 
hurls him across the street ; and it is no evidence that 
a man is converted because a tremendous physical ex- 
citement has lifted him for a moment out of the slough 
of his bad habits, blown the mud off of him, and 
crazed him, so that he talks and screams in the lan- 
guage of virtuous insanity. In a well-conducted re- 
vival, where the word of instruction is duly honored, 
and not entirely supplanted by fervid exhortation ; 
where the judgment, and not the passions, is ad- 
dressed ; where God is heard in the " still small voice," 
and not in the tempest and thunder of men's shout- 
ing ; where the convicted person takes each step de- 
liberately, and only as it is plainly perceived to be a 
duty, — in a revival so conducted, I say, I cannot con- 
ceive that any would be " deceived ; " and the con- 
verts would come into the Church as buds and blos- 
soms come to a tree, — because the latent stages of 
floral preparation have been experienced, and the hour 
of revealed beauty and fragrance has arrived. 



118 CHURCH-MEMBERSHIP: 

But, were this otherwise, what then? Is the 
probability that a young convert, finding himself 
" deceived," would live the life of an impious hypo- 
crite for forty years, a very strong one ? Suppose a 
case. Should one of these young girls here discover, 
after being for six months a member of the Church, 
that she had been mistaken, and was not a Christian, 
what would she do ? Would she dissemble to her 
parents and friends ; meet her pastor with a lie in 
her mouth ; handle, season after season, the sacred 
emblems of the Lord's Supper with impious hands ? 
Is this probable ? nay, is it supposable ? The experi- 
ence of every pastor in the land controverts this as- 
sumption. Case after case has come to my personal 
notice where these '' deceived " ones have approached 
the pastor with the story of their wretchedness ; and 
being by him more carefully instructed than they had 
been previously, their personal obligation to God 
pressed home upon them as none save a pastor, when 
he stands in such a position, can do, they have fallen 
upon their knees, and fled for refuge to Him, whom at 
last, after many wanderings, with joy and the weep- 
ing of gladness, they have found. 

I ask you all to observe that this theory of " wait- 
ing until you see if the converts will hold out " is 
based upon a wrong idea of the Church, its nature 
and object. It pictures the Church as a place of ease 
and security, not of training and effort ; whereas, 
as I conceive, the Church was never intended to be a 
kind of holy lounge for somnambulent piety to doze 
and stretch itself on, languidly waiting to be " borne 



WHAT CONSTITUTES FITNESS FOR IT? 119 

on angels' wings to heaven," but a gymnasium rather, 
furnished with all the appliances of spiritual exercise, 
and where, through wise activity, the members are to 
have every power and faculty developed until they 
come to the " measure of the stature of the fulness 
of Christ." When a person joins the Church, he does 
not seat himself in an ambulance, to remain until the 
battle is over, and then be drawn into the city of the 
great King in triumph. No I he takes a musket and 
a place in the ranks, and marches as he is ordered, 
beaten on by the burning heat, tormented with thirst ; 
and returns not to his tent until the sun stoops to the 
west, the enemy fly, and the banners, torn and stained 
by the lead and smoke of many a previous fight, are 
furled once more in victory. 

The duty, then, resting upon every converted per- 
son to publicly join the band of Christ's disciples, is as 
plain and pressing as is the duty of prayer. Christ 
himself commands it, the person's own growth and 
happiness require it, and the world expects it. It is 
the direct and natural result of regeneration, the seal 
and evidence of conversion, and the promoting cause 
of usefulness. 

As to luliere you shall go, that is, what church you 
should join, my advice is. Go where you like to go. 
This is a matter of pure personal election. Consult 
your judgment and your inclinations also. Don't be 
dragged nor pushed. Because God's convincing and 
convicting truth found you in this church, it does not 
follow that you should join us here. It may be that 
some other pastor in this city can feed you better 



120 CHUECH-MEMBERSHIP: 

than I can ; that some other form of worship is more 
congenial to your taste than ours ; and that some 
other part of the one great vineyard of which we here 
are but a little corner can give you work better adapt- 
ed to your powers and your talents. Consult, in 
these matters, you own judgment, the voice of your 
nature, and the necessities of the cause. Go where 
you will have the best spiritual companionship ; go 
where you will be the most profited ; above all, go 
where you most desire to go ; and, wherever you go, 
stay. Some people are like snails : they carry their spir- 
itual home around with them on their backs. You 
never see them twice in the same church. They are 
religious vagabonds, forever on the move, and with- 
out any fixed abode. Nothing short of death in their 
family gives them a pastoral connection. It is aston- 
ishing how many moribund parishioners the pastor of 
a city church can have. This is a wretched habit ; 
and notliing too severe can be said in its condemna- 
tion. 

At this point, friends, I will pause. I have spoken 
in explanation of the nature of the Christian Church, 
and of what constitutes fitness for its membership. I 
have pronounced against what I regard as certain err- 
ors extant in respect to the time and the method of 
joining it. To me the Church is not a human, but a 
divine, institution. It is not merely a duty, but the 
highest privilege, to belong to her communion. Her 
children have been of the purest and noblest of all 
generations. Their devotion is the marvel of the 



'WHAT CONSTITUTES FITNESS FOE IT? 12;! 

ages. She lias never looked in vain for those who 
would die for her truth. Her martyrs have gone to 
theu" death, not reluctantly, but as the unregenerate 
go to coveted honors. The fame of her deeds and 
her sufferings illuminates history. For centuries she 
stood as the only bulwark against tyranny, the sole 
patron of art, the teacher of letters, and the only 
hope of mankind. But her brightest day has not come. 
The glory of her future will be greater than the fame 
of her past. The orbit of her sublime movement shall 
never stoop to the horizon-line. A perfect sphere, 
radiant on all sides, kindling into greater fervor, like 
the Olympic wheels, as she revolves; more intense 
and luminous as she moves on, yet never exhausting 
the divine fervor within whence her beams proceed, — 
the Church, greatest luminary and sole queen of the 
moral heavens, will continue in majesty along her 
course until the vision of the prophet shall be real- 
ized, and the Gentiles shall come to her light, and 
kings to the brightness of her rising. 



SABBATH MOBKINO, APRIL 16, 1871. 



SERMON. 



SUBJECT. -THE RELATION OF SANCTIFICATION TO THE WILL. 

" Work out your own salvatiox with fear and trembling." — 
Phil. ii. 12. 

IN the passage of which the text is a part, two 
great truths are stated and enforced. They lie 
side by side hke two parallel ranges of mountains 
between which runs the travelled road. On the one 
side is the great fact of God's sovereignty over us, — 
his power to direct the judgment, incline the mind, 
and sway the passions of men. It is a vast and ma- 
jestic truth, whose base and summit no eye can see ; 
for its foundations are laid amid the deep things of 
God, and its crest is seen only by the ascended. On 
the other side is the co-ordinate truth of man's sov- 
ereignty over himself, less mysterious, but no less 
worthy of attention. Out of it rises man's respon- 
sibility for his acts, and hence the guilt of his miscon- 
duct. On it are predicated sin and the justice of pun- 
ishment. The two do not conflict. They do not 
intercept nor run counter to each other. The expla- 
nation, as I apprehend it, is this. Abstractly consid- 
ered, God, in his sovereignty, is absolute. There is 



EELATIOK OF SANCTIFICATION TO THE WILL. 123 

no bound, no limitation, to it. He speaks, and it is 
done ; he decides, and the decree is set. No power 
can withstand him, no mightiness resist. His throne 
is from everlasting to everlasting, and the words of 
his mouth are law. This is the abstract statement, 
justified both by Scripture and the reason of things. 
But, relatively considered, it is otherwise. God, as 
regards man, limits his sovereignty. He withholds it 
from its ultimate expression. He puts bounds to its 
exercise. As it relates to man, I say, there is a sphere 
in which it works, and there is a point beyond which 
it does not go. He does not work irresistibly in us : 
for, were it so, none could *' resist " him ; which we 
know is possible. He does not carry his efficiency so 
far as to mar our authorship in our own acts ; else 
would there be no virtue in our obedience, and no 
guilt in our transgression. When it is said, therefore, 
that " God worketh in us both to will and to do of 
his own good pleasure," it is meant that he gives us 
that strength, works in us those abilities, requisite to 
our willing and working. He pushes his " working " 
so far as to prepare us and assist us to do either. 
The fact fully stated, as I conceive, is this, — thatvwe 
can do nothing without God, and he will do nothXig 
without us. We need his help ; and he will do noth- 
ing without the concurrence of our endeavors. He 
does not will for us ; he does not act for us : we 
will and act for ourselves. Choice and election are 
ours. We are not like the victims of superstition, 
who, bound hand and foot, are cast headlong into the 
current. Our limbs are free : we can strike out for 



124 THE KELATION OF SANCTIFICATION 

either shore we please. Life or death hangs on oui 
own unforced decision. The will is inclined ; but it 
is not dethroned. A thousand motives, like angels, 
stand round its footstool. Their mouths are foil of 
argument, full of entreaty ; but the throne is free to 
decide. At death, each of you will pass to the bar of 
God, and be judged as one who has been king over 
yourself. The face of Satan is black ; it is scarred ; 
it is in ruins : but on its dismal front sits royalty, — 
the power to rule one's self, to elect between the evil 
and the good. The star is there, albeit its hght is 
quenched ; and its raj^s are but the going-forth of 
blackness so intense as to distinguish it amid the sur- 
rounding gloom. 

Now, it is upon the subject of man's sovereignty 
over himself, or the relation of the will to our sanc- 
tification, that I desire to speak this morning : and I 
do it in the way of explanation and warning to jo\i 
who have recently been born of the Spirit, to the 
end that you may not lapse in your efforts, nor fail in 
such endeavors as are calculated to build you up in 
true faith and holiness. And I do most earnestly 
exhort j^ou to listen to what I shall say, and, by medi- 
tation upon it, take, in full measure, the profit which 
God may grant you, through it, to receive. 

I remark, then, that knowledge is the condition of 
growth. The Christian must understand the doc- 
trines of the Bible. This position harmonizes with 
the prayer of Christ : " Sanctify them through Thy 
truth ; Thy word is truth." It is not enough to un- 
derstand a doctrine in itself considered, and by itself; 



J 



TO THE WILL. 125 

you must understand it in its relation to and connec- 
tion with otiiers, or you do not understand it at all. 
The teachings of the Bible are chain-like ; they are 
linked together : and to disconnect them by ignorance 
or omission is to destroy that coherence in which lies 
their value and strength. Take the doctrine of re- 
generation, for instance : how easy it is to err in 
reference to it ! Many do err. They make it mean 
more than it does mean. They make it cover more 
in the scriptural scheme than it does cover. It means 
being " born again.'' A regenerated person is one 
whose desh^es and affections have been miraculously 
changed. A power greater than his own has been 
at work in him, and made him in his wishes and hopes 
other than he was. In spirit, he is a babe just de- 
livered. The breath of a new and hitherto unexpe- 
rienced life is in him : he exists. 

Now, I ask all these newly-born souls in Christ to 
remember that they are neidy born, and onh' horn. 
They are not grown. Their weakness is that of a 
babe's. They breathe ; they exist ; the}' can take 
nourishment : beyond this, as yet, their strength is 
not. Growth, expansion, vigor, maturity, — these 
are states they have not, as yet, reached. These will 
come only in time, and as they use the provision pro- 
vided by God through the appointed means of grace. 
One will be developed more rapidly than another, 
one arrive at a holy maturity sooner than another ; 
but each will pass through essentially the same pro- 
cess or ever he will come to be a full man in Christ. 
Regeneration, then, is birth, and onlv birth. That is 
aU. 



126 THE EELATION OF SANCTIFICATION 

What, then, to put it in another way, does regen- 
eration do to a sinner? I reply, It cleanses the 
essence ; it purifies the primal force of the soul : but 
it does not change the surroundings or the conduct. 
I will illustrate it. 

Take a person who by indulgence of his appetites, 
by unhealthy diet and riotous courses, has vitiated his 
blood. He has been a glutton, — a "high liver," I 
believe, is the fashionable term, — and gorged himself 
daily to repletion ; or he has been a drunkard, — 
only he has imbibed in such respectable company 
and such costly liquors, that the police have not dis- 
covered it ; and the result is, that his " blood is out 
of condition." His veins swell with disease; they 
are inflamed with the repressed violence of fever. 
The vital current is vitiated, and labors in vain to 
purge itself free of its foulness. The physician is 
summoned. He is skilful. He cuts the man down 
in his diet ; brings relief to his overloaded stomach ; 
restores the blood to its normal condition ; the man 
is convalescent. 

Now, what has the physician done ? — without the 
patient's help, observe. He has purified his blood, 
I respond, driven out the threatening fever, cleansed 
it, and restored the functions of the body to a healthy 
and normal condition. So much he has done. What 
has he not done ? He has not, I reply, eradicated the 
causes of the disease ; he has not corrected the man's 
appetites ; he has not removed the temptation to 
and possibility of future indulgence ; he has not 
made it impossible for his patient to undo all his bless- 



TO THE WILL. 127 

ed work, and become in a year as diseased as he was 
when he first found him. 

Friends, no illustration is perfect. One must not 
push analogy too far ; but this one may help you to 
conceive what God, in the act of regeneration, does 
and does not do. 

It is an act of purification ; an act of divine cleans- 
ing. The sinner does not assist at it : it is God's 
own unaided work. It purges out the fever of sin ; 
it rectifies the spiritual circulation ; it drives the 
blood from the overcharged brain, and enables the man 
to think rationally ; it corrects the judgment by re- 
vealing to the subject the causes of danger : this it 
does. But it does not remove the causes of danger ; 
it does not take the love of liquor from the drunk- 
ard, nor hot temper from the passionate, nor the 
love of money from the miserly, nor the love of show 
from the vain. These elements of character, these 
habits of mind, remain, — remain in all their force, to 
be fought and wrestled with, and overcome at last, 
like a long-armed and stout-backed foe, by the best 
effort of our power. 

When a soul, therefore, is born unto Christ, it is 
born unto battle, — battle with itself. Christ has 
come to it, not to bring peace, but a sword, — a sword 
that shall smite and cleave. Passion and appetite 
and lust shall each oppose its sweep, and each in turn 
feel its descending edge. In regeneration was born, 
not holiness, but a desire to be holy ; and even this 
desire was at first feeble. Time adds to its height and 
girth; deepens and intensifies it, until it becomes a 



128 THE RELATION OF SANCTIFICATION 

strong and deathless yearning, crying night and da}^ 
for that which can alone satisfy it, like a mother for 
her lost child ; yea, and will not be content until it 
has its arms around the hope of its life. Sweet is it 
to be born ; sweet is the light to opening eyes that 
dimly see the glory; sweet the first breath fra- 
grant with the mother's instinctive kiss ; sweet to 
the new-born is the sense of touch, and all the sights 
and sounds of this delightful world: but sweeter 
far the after-growth, the deepening and ever-widen- 
ing life, the apprehension of added force, the sense 
of gathering power deep-heaving as the sea, the 
dignity of poise and balance well sustained, the free 
unchecked thought, the mind expanded, and a soul 
standing proudly on its consciousness like a perfect 
statue on its broad and well-adjusted pedestal. I re- 
call the hour in which spiritually I was born ; the rush 
of exquisite sensations, and the deep, trance-like peace : 
and yet that was, as I now know, an infantile mode 
of life, and an infantile experience. What Christian 
of any years, here to-day, would exchange this hour 
for the first of his Christian life ? Who would cast 
aside the knowledge of himself and of God's word 
which the years of striving and study have brought 
liim ? — who surrender his clear views of duty, the 
fixed resolve, the unwavering faith, the immovable 
hope, the purified imagination, the confirmed virtue, 
and all the victories over sin that he has won, for the 
childlike and fleeting sensation of that natal period ? 
Not one. The day is better than the dawn ; and bet- 
ter yet the warm decline, — the sky of tempered blue 



TO THE WILL. 129 

unvexed hj clouds ; the peaceful passing of a Avell- 
rounded and perfect life, bathed in the glory of the 
next even before it has passed the line of this present 
life. 

Not only is sanctification in its experience and re- 
sult better than regeneration ; not only is the life of 
holiness better than the birth thereto ; not only is it 
a process closely connected with our own effort ; but 
it is in development gradual, and in order step by step. 

Holiness is not instantaneous ; it is not arbitrarily 
wrought out in us bj^ the Spirit : it is a result 
reached through a conjunction of the divine influence 
with our own endeavors. Entrance through the 
" strait gate " comes through " striving." Our salva- 
tion is "worked out." We are not merely recipients 
of the divine favor, but co-laborers with the Divine 
Person. The person who does no more than pray 
for holiness will never make a holy prayer. God 
clothes and feeds us spiritually, as he does physically, 
through our own exertions, and in no other way. 
He who forgets this may force his way into the mar- 
riage-feast ; but lie will be in the same plight as was 
he who stood with no wedding-garment on. 

Not only is sanctification gradual, but there is also 
a certain order in which it is accomplished ; and the 
order is this : The strongest evil passion or inclination 
first. If a man is a drunkard, and he is converted, 
the first thing he wages war with is his appetite for 
liquor. This is his nearest and deadliest foe ; and he 
naturally grapples first with that. If he has been a 
man profane in speech, he sets himself to fight this 



X 

130 THE RELATION OF SANCTIFICATION 

habit before all others. He may have other evil 
habits ; but the order of sanctification is, the greatest 
sin first. A dozen serpents may be in his path ; but 
that one whose fangs are already in his flesh, and 
whose deadly coil is around his limb, is the one he 
clutches and tears away first. And thus the fight 
goes on. One sin at a time, one evil habit after an- 
other, — each calling for a separate decision, a distinct 
act of the Avill, — is dealt with, his strength growing 
with each effort, until what at first was hard becomes 
ea:-'", and the will, educated by its own action against 
evil, grows antagonistic to it, and, in such antagonism, 
harmonizes with God's. 

Holiness is then, as you see, the result of growth. 
The soul has its gradations and processes of expansion : 
its unfolding is slow, and regulated by the well-ascer- 
tained law of cause and effect. Nature is full of 
analogies to represent this. Take a water-lil3^ Did 
you ever lie on a bank, or sit in a boat, and see one 
ripen and expand from the bulbous state into the 
full dazzling glory of perfect bloom ? At first, it lies 
upon the water a light-green lobe, — close, compact, 
the edges of its yet-to-be-developed leaves seamless, 
entire ; a floral cocoon, within whose dark, dun sides 
is prisoned a future beauty beyond the splendor of 
golden-tinted wings. At length, the light, close case 
begins to swell ; the glued leaves let go their hold 
each on the other ; and a pale, whitish streak marks 
where their bands are loosened. Still more the buoy- 
like bulb expands ; the vital germ, clamoring for the 
sun, presses against its sides ; until the green incase- 



TO THE WILL. 131 

ment, distended almost into a sphere, unable longer 
to endure the pressure, bursts at the top ; the parted 
sections fall back upon the water ; and the white globe 
of almond-pointed leaves, with its rich heart of gold, 
floats languidly upon the tide. Prodigal of its sweet- 
ness, it yields its perfume freely to the passing breeze ; 
and the scented wind, gladly bearing so sweet a bur- 
den, wafts it abroad, leaving upon the air a fragrant 
trail. In this picture of floral development you see 
the portraiture of that expansion which in the soul 
transpires under divine processes and managerc -^nt ; 
for, like the lily, the soul at first lies compact in self- 
ishness, devoid of perfume or any feature of loveliness, 
yet capable of both. At last, the heavens warm to- 
ward it, and a germ divinely planted within aspires 
to grow. Then yearnings are felt ; struggles and con- 
tests with what represses it occur. The hard, tough 
incasements of worldliness yield slowly and sullenly 
to the pressure of spiritual forces within. Yet more 
and more uplifted by thoughts of its immortality, 
borne upward also as birds upon a current of air by 
the wind-like Spirit, the soul longs for and soars nearer 
to God. Down into it from above continually, come 
brightness and warmth, ineffable, genial. It clamors 
for freedom. It presses against the sides of its prison. 
It refuses to be pent up, contracted, fettered, by its 
sins. It yearns for light and warmth and the free 
air of heaven. It persists ; it wins : and the sancti- 
fied soul, white as a lil}^ at last, with the blood of 
Christ for its heart, fragrant with the impartments of 
grace, bursts the coherence of its sins, and floats in 



132 THE EELATION OF SANCTIFICATIOK 

the beauty of holiness on the " river of life." Remem- 
ber, therefore, all 3^ou who are now but so recently 
born into the new birth, that you are born, not into the 
state of holiness, but into the state of growth in holi- 
ness, and a state of effort for it. You are not ripe as 
yet : you are only ripening. You are not in flower, 
expanded, tinted, fragrant : you are in the bud, and 
will come forward only as the season advances, and 
the days of deepening warmth are multiplied in genial 
succession. 

In this process of moral advancement, in which the 
soul marches from one battle-field to another, and 
from one victory to another, in which each day is 
one of conflict, and each night demands vigilance of 
the will, the determining power of the mind is a 
prime actor. God inclines the Christian to decide 
rightly ; but our decisions are in every sense our own. 
He reveals to us the right and the wrong in conduct, 
and there leaves us. He makes the tender ; but we 
accept or reject in absolute independence of action. 
Volition is unhampered. Decision prompt and un- 
hesitating, on our part, is imperative. He who leaves 
off a bad habit does it in the free exercise of his own 
power. Each virtue attained comes in the way of 
voluntary election. You who are young in years and 
inexperienced in the Christian life should bear this 
well in mind. Prayers will never make you holy ; 
longing will never maintain your virtue ; dreamy 
desires will never push on your reformation. Evil 
will come with its enticements and solicitations : and 
God will not decide for you ; he will not shield you 



TO THE WILL. 133 

from the pressure of its invitation. You your- 
self must '' overcome evil ; " you yourself must say, 
" Get thee behind me, Satan ! " Yfhen the Spirit be- 
got you, you were born to be a warrior. You were 
conceived of God as a contestant. Your attitude as 
a Christian is martial, and your career is that of a 
soldier. All this is but a paraphrase of Scripture, and 
should be taken in all its literal significance. When 
a man is tempted to cheat, he must knit himself up, 
and say, '-'- 1 luill not do it^ When profanity jumps 
to his tongue as a tiger at the door of his cage, he 
must sink the bolts of reticence into their sockets, 
and hold the ugly thing in. When sin of any kind 
or degree approaches him seductively, he must rally 
all the forces of his manhood, recall his vows, bring 
up in remembrance his covenant, and face it ; meeting 
it squarely, eye to eye, without flinching, until its con- 
fidence, which was based on his supposed weakness, 
departs at the sight of his boldness, overawed and 
intimidated "b}^ the God-like integrity of his soul. 
This was the Saviour's method, — the way in which he 
treated temptation ; nor will any ever find a better. I 
have no faith in the monastic conception of holiness, 
its cause and security. I do not believe that mason- 
ry of granite, and doors of iron, can shut out tempta- 
tion. Temptation is in us ; and you might as well ex- 
pect to fence a man from the impurities of his own 
blood as from the seductive tendencies of his sinful 
disposition. The mind makes its own sins, and the 
offspring are of the color and character of the parent. 
The " warfare " of which Paul speaks is not a de- 



1^4 THE EELATION OF SANCTIFICATION 

fensive, but an offensive, warfare. The Christian's 
security lies in the suddenness and fierceness with 
which he attacks his foe. He can never pitch his 
tent, and unharness, while an enemy rennains alive on 
the field ; which field is his own sin-possessed nature. 
Then shall he have rest from his labors, and not until 
then. Then shall peril to him be passed ; the neces- 
sity of conflict gone forever with his sin ; and, con- 
queror at last over himself, at peace with his con- 
science and with his God, he joins the company 
of those who have fought the good fight, who have 
finished the course, who have kept the faith. 

You see, at this point, just where the danger lies 
against which I warn you to-day. Half the attempts 
men make at reformation are only attempts. They 
are like boys, who, being on the wrong side of a 
stream, gather themselves for the spring, but do not 
jump. They do every thing but do. They feel that 
their conduct is wrong ; that a certain habit is evil : 
and they decide to change, and leave it off; but they 
do not leave it off. They keep saying to themselves, 
" This is a wrong course I am pursuing ; I will stop, 
and turn about : " and, all the while, the}^ continue 
to walk straight on in the same evil way. There are, 
I fear, scores of Christians in the churches to-day who 
are living in sin, not because they are not convinced 
that it is sin, not because they have no desires to live 
more holy lives, — for knowledge and desire are unto 
them, — but simply and solely because they will not 
exert their will ; because they do not put the brakes 
of resolution upon the flying wheels of their natural 



TO THE WILL. 135 

tendencies ; because they will not by one noble re- 
solve make a sacrifice of their selfishness. 

This view it is which teaches us that we are re- 
sponsible for our non-growth in holiness. Our guilt 
is the guilt of weakness, too indolent to exercise itself 
into vigor; of x^overty, that seeks not to better its 
condition ; of the starving, that refuse food. The 
same measure of effort that men put forth in carnal 
directions, exerted in spiritual, would make them all 
samts. God is responsible for the thoroughness of 
our regeneration. A vital germ must be implanted, 
a birth must actually occur in the soid, or else the 
Spirit's power is not experienced. On the other hand, 
we are responsible for the utmost honesty of effort, 
the fullest measure of endeavor, and the constant use 
of every telp given us of God to go forward from 
knowledge to knowledge, and grace to grace. 

I have thus far discussed what might be regarded 
as the principles of the subject. We will now pro- 
ceed to the application. 

Have we, as Christians, sufficiently discerned the 
intimate connection between the determining faculty 
of our mind and our sanctification ? Have we been 
striving to purify our affections without using the 
solely-appointed means ? It may be that some of jou. 
have laid every power and faculty at the feet of God 
save your power to will and decide : you have conse- 
crated all but that. You are in the condition of ships 
whose every rope is in its proper place ; every spar 
and sail duly set, and blown upon by what would be 



136 THE RELATION OF SANCTIFICATION" 

a favoring breeze if they were judiciously steered : but 
not one of them has its rudder shipped ! They are 
baffled about ; they sail in circles ; they make no 
progress, because they are deprived of their helms. 
And so it is in the case of many Christians. Their 
desires are all right ; their longings proper ; their 
hopes all face heavenward ; their prayers are con- 
stant : and yet they are not sanctified ; they make, 
as they feel, little if any progress in holiness ; and the 
reason is, because the helm-like faculty, the directing, 
controlling, and authoritative power of their minds, 
the will, is not utilized for God. Friends, this, as you 
must all see, is a fatal mistake. Many remain in 
bondage, many in peril. Many walk day by day 
along the edge of possible disaster, pushed against at 
every step they take by temptation, who can never 
deliver themselves until they realize what a divine 
efficiency there is at times in that little word No. 
Prayers will not save them; neither tears, nor groans, 
nor the agonies of an upbraiding conscience, nor the 
advice of many, can save them. Their own decision, 
driven spear-like to the ver}^ vitals of the sin, trans- 
fixing it, will alone deliver them from their torment 
and their danger. 

And how, friends, let us be honest toward our- 
selves. Let us take up, each for himself, in his own 
hand, veiling its beams under his mantle, the torch 
of personal examination, and go down alone, unac- 
companied by an}^, into the cellar of our natures. No 
one has the right to accompany us there. Inspect 
every nook and corner, and find whatever venomous 



TO THE WILL. 137 

thing lurks witliin that hitherto-unvisited darkness, 
and flash the light full on its deadly coil. Having 
found it, beat down with all your force upon its head, 
and kill it. Let it no more be in you, but be cast 
utterly away from you. If you have wills, if you 
are not weaklings and incapables, use them, hence- 
forth at least, for God. But you say, " I have many 
sins, not merely one : it seems to me as if my nature 
is alive with them. I feel their movements in me; 
and I see their traces everywhere." I do not doubt 
it. But is there not some one taller and stouter than 
all his fellows, some unl^ruised sin, brawny and sup- 
ple, which 3^ou have failed to attack as yet ? — some 
one sin, I say, more subtle, more insidious, more vile 
and polluting, than all beside, which, vveve you well 
rid of, would, on the instant, make you a nobler man 
or a purer woman than you are ? If so, that is the 
sin God makes just now, at this time, more than ever 
your duty to attack. Now is your mind enlightened, 
your conscience quickened, your will braced. Lay 
hold of it, then ; take it by the throat, and choke the 
life out of it. If you want help, if you shrink, and 
desire an inspiration, I will give it you. Look unto 
Jesus ; ay, look into his face, — the face of Him who 
was in all points tempted as 3^ou are ; upon which sits, 
as a crown upon the forehead of a god, the majesty 
of one who has overcome. Look unto him, and 
strength shall come to you. Your will will feel the 
moving of a mighty power within it ; your heart will 
leap ; your face will flush as the heart and face of 
one who has made a great discovery ; and you will say 



138 RELATION OF SANCTIFICATION TO THE WILL. 

with the old Pauline hopefulness of speech, " Lo, I 
can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth 
me." 

But is sanctification the result of disciplinary pro- 
cesses alone ? Is it ever instantaneous ? ever given in 
answer to praj^er made ef&cient by the measure of 
the prompting faith that shrinks not from the asking ? 
My friends, I know not how to answer this ; but I 
would fain think that it might so come. Once or 
twice I have thought I felt it ; but whether I was de- 
ceived, or whether I could not retain it, I know not. 
But, for the moment, earth seemed like heaven ; and 
within me I felt t]ie peace that passeth all under- 
standing. But, howsoever it may come, we all, who 
are in Christ, wait for it, — wait in hope, not failing to 
make every effort while effort is possible. By and by, 
when we lie in the transition, and the gray veil that 
no mortal hand may ever lift is setting slowly and 
softly over us, and the sounds of the earth die out, 
and its sights fade, God grant that then, at least, it 
may come to us; come as the sense of power and 
rapture comes to a bird in its first flight; come as 
of old voice came to the dumb, whose lips quivered 
into speech at the word of Christ ; and on the wings 
of its coming, and made vocal by it, our souls shall 
soar and sinoj forever ! 



SABBATH MORKIKO, APRIL S3, 1871. 



SERMOK 



SUBJECT. -CHRIST THE DELIVERER, 

" Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath 
MADE us free; and be not entangled again with the toke of bond- 
age."— Gal. v. 1. 

IEARELY enter upon the preparation of a ser- 
mon, of late, without pausing to reflect upon the 
manifold mercies that God has visited upon us as a 
church during the last year. For outward prosper- 
ity, for peace and love among ourselves, — truest 
evidence of the Spirit's presence, — for that sweet 
fellowship in Christ found only in faithful co-opera- 
tion, I yield him with bowed head the humble recog- 
nition of my gratitude. But above these causes of 
joy is that found in the conversion of many souls to 
Jesus. This is to the others what the full-blown rose 
is to its stalk, — the ornament and crown of its growth, 
the fragrant proof and expression of the supporting 
life beneath. 

The great and foremost desire of my heart toward 
you newly-gained disciples of Christ is, that you may 
become useful disciples. I desire that you have right 
views of God, out of which alone come right views 

139 



140 CHRIST THE DELIVERER. 

of duty. I desire tliat you understand the difference 
between 3^our present condition and that from which 
you have been dehvered, to the end that you may be 
happy and hopeful Christians, honoring God by your 
entire confidence, and advertising religion as a joy and 
comfort by your rejoicing. Every Christian should 
make his religion appear so desirable, that all his 
friends and acquaintances should desire it. I wish, in 
this discourse, to assist you to realize your indebted- 
ness to Christ ; to see what he has done for you, that 
he may appear excellent and amiable in your eyes, — 
" the chiefest among ten thousand, and the one alto- 
gether lovely : " for I know that out of the sense of 
great benefits received will spring up in your hearts 
a great love for the benefactor. 

I am to speak of Christ as a deliverer ; and I shall 
mention four types of bondage from which he delivers 
his followers, and what he substitutes in the place of 
each. 

The first form of slavery that I shall mention from 
which Christ delivers man is ceremonial observances. 

There has been, in all ages, a strong tendency on 
the part of those to whom religious matters were in- 
trusted to multiply ceremonies. Formalism has ever 
been the deadliest foe of piety. Ritualism has built 
up barrier after barrier between the soul and God. 
The ingenuity of man has been taxed to multiply im- 
pediments in the path of man's approach to the Deity. 
The symbol has ever been thrust between the inquir- 
ing eye and the Being symbolized, and hence all prog- 
ress toward a true understandinci: of God checked. 



CHRIST THE DELIVEPvER. 141 

Not only so ; but cruelty of every form has been prac- 
tised under the sanction of these elaborate systems 
of men's device. You see the reason of this. Where 
forms are many, where the machinery is complex, 
where the ceremony is imposing, where the tradi- 
tion is dim, human instrumentality is requisite ; the 
priest, the interpreter, is endowed with solemn and 
imposing functions. He who moves the pageant, he 
who holds the key to divine favor, who has the ear 
of God, is clothed with a dignity, an importance, 
a sanctity, which would not otherwise be ascribed to 
him. Where, as a mere man, he would be rejected 
and denounced as an impostor, as a priest, as the 
vicegerent of God, as the mediator, he is respected 
and feared. Back of him is a terrible power ; and 
men must do his bidding. If he asks for " money," 
money is given ; if he demands " chastity," chas- 
tity is surrendered ; if he even says " life," the dev- 
otee mounts the funeral-pyre, or bares his breast to 
the sacrificial knife. No greater curse has the world 
seen than ritualism. It has prolonged grosser igno- 
rance, prevented more progress, been parent of 
more bigotry, smothered more piety, than any other 
enemy of the soul. 

But, when Christ is made known to the mind, all 
this is swept away. There was nothing he so despised 
when on the earth as formalism. The ritualists of 
his day met with no mercy at his hand. He charged 
them with being hypocrites, who bound burdens 
grievous to be borne upon men's backs, which they 
would not touch even with their fino^er. He said to 



142 CHEIST THE DELIVEEEE. 

them, " Ye block up the gate of heaven against men, 
in that ye neither go in yourselves, nor suffer others 
to enter." He charged them with making the Scrip- 
tures of none effect through their traditions. When 
Christ came, he levelled every barrier between the 
soul and God. He told his disciples to " call no man 
master save God alone." He cut every cord with 
which the pride and arrogance of men had meshed 
the soul, and gave it liberty to mount heavenward as 
a dove escaped from the snare of the fowler. There 
is not a person in the world, where Christ is known, 
but that can go directly to God, and, in his own per- 
son, present his petition. Access to the throne is 
free ; the path is open and wide ; and we can all en- 
ter the innermost room of our Father's palace un- 
challenged. 

Another release that Christ brings to the believer's 
soul is a release from law. 

The Old Testament is law. It is one vast system 
of legislation : penalty, penalty, everywhere. It was 
law, not in general, but in detail. It held sway not 
only over the soul, but over the body also. It told a 
man what he should eat and drink, whom he should 
love and hate, whom protect, and whom destroy. It 
went as a spy into the most intimate and confidential 
relations of life ; dictated affection and marriage, 
child-bearing, and domestic intercourse. It treated 
men as mere children. Paul says the " law was our 
schoolmaster." And well did it deserve the title. 
in one respect at least ; for dictation and the rod were 
everywhere. But observe further. Note what neces- 



CHRIST THE DELIVEEER. 143 

sarily grows out of such a system. Where law is, 
there must be officers to execute it ; there, too, are 
police regulations and the detestable habit of espi- 
onage, and all the entanglements, the mortifications, 
the terror, which follow in the train of complex and 
severe legislation, — a legislation which seeks to gov- 
ern personal habits, and shape personal character. 

Moreover, such legislation is not only tyrannical, 
but it is also inefficient : there is nothing in law which 
quickens and enlarges the nature, and grows it up into 
the state of self-government. Law, from beginning 
to end, means repression. It appeals to fear. Its 
agent is force. Not only so, but it addresses itself 
only to the acts. It leaves untouched, unchanged, 
perhaps, the great realm of motives. It has no power 
to regenerate the character. Judge the system by 
its fruits. How few characters in Old-Testament his- 
tory that are worthy of imitation ! How few appear 
in radiance above the dark level of their times ! Our 
average is better than their best. David and Solo- 
mon would have forfeited their church relation had 
that relation been Christian, and not Jewish. Yet 
they are, in some respects, the best representatives of 
the system under which they lived : they type its 
power to reform character ; they illustrate the limi- 
tations and the feebleness of any legal, any primitive 
regulation to assist in the development of man's na- 
ture. 

But Christ came, and all this was changed. Not 
mere obedience, but love, was made the fulfilment of 
the law. The divine law had appealed to fear, and 



144 CHEIST THE DELIVEEEE. 

proved its origin by supernatural exliibitions of power. 
The divine Person appealed to love, — " If ye love me, 
ye will keep my commandments," — and proved his 
origin by supernatural exhibitions of mercy. Christ, 
it is true, did not annul the law ; not a jot or tittle of 
it was abrogated : but he came to show men, and he 
did show men, a new and better way to fulfil it, by 
making obedience easy. The yoke had been galling, 
and the burden heavy ; but he assured them that his 
yoke was easy, and his burden light. The New Tes- 
tament appeals to a class of motives the Old paid 
little regard to, or left entirely unnoticed. Through 
it, the Father, and not the Judge, speaks. Christ ban- 
ished fear from the list of agents on which he was to 
rely. " Ye are no longer servaiits,''' said he to his 
disciples : "ye are friends .'' A servant is subject to 
commands ; and those commands can be enforced 
against him in case of his disobedience : but you can- 
not threaten, you cannot punish, a friend ; yet a 
friend will do more for you than a servant. That is, 
the class of motives which friendship acknowledges^ 
is a stronger, more efficient class than that which mere 
legal obligation begets. You see how much higher 
and deeper, how much more profound, how much more 
efficient, is the philosophy of the New Testament than 
is that of the Old. Test them by their respective re- 
sults. Compare the average character of Christians 
now with the average character of the Jews in their 
best days. See what love has done, and then com- 
pare it with what law did. 

The reason, friends, that I object so strenuously to 



CHEIST THE DELIVEEER. 145 

such representations of Christianity as shall make it 
to be only a new edition of Judaism, the reason I 
avoid making appeals to men's fears when urging 
them to accept of the gospel plan of salvation and 
life, is because I feel that such a course does not pre- 
sent the strongest motives that can be brought to bear 
upon men's minds. Such a method of preaching is 
wrong, looking at it from the standpoint of influence. 
It is substituting lower for higher motives, weaker 
for stronger, transient for permanent. It is an at- 
tempt to put the chains of the Old-Testament motive 
upon men; to drive the old and once bloody but now 
discarded goad of compulsion into them. It does, in 
fact, Judaize Christianity, and bury Calvar}^ beneath 
the debris of Sinai. A message that frightens and 
terrifies men is not " glad news ; " and no adroitly- 
turned exhortation can make it appear as such. Some 
men preach as if they were responsible for the con- 
version of the world ; whereas all they are responsi- 
ble for is a truthful and candid presentation of divine 
truth. If I may only unfold the love of God for you, 
my people ; if I can onlj^ present Christ to you in such 
a way that you can understand the feelings of your 
heavenly Father, and how the Saviour lived and died 
for you ; if I can only lift the veil which sin and 
worldly habits have thrown over your minds, and 
cause you to behold the be^auty of holiness ; if I can 
only bring your feet so nigh the base of Calvary, that 
you may see the three crosses of gospel history upon 
the crest, with the figure of your dying Lord outlined 
against the sky, — I shall feel my duty is done, and the 



148 CHEIST THE DELIVEEEE. 

message I am sent to deliver has had, through my 
lips, its proper expression. I am more anxious to set 
the message before your minds correctly than to make 
a visible impression. It is not by a succession of 
tornadoes that God causes Nature to grow and be- 
come fruitfal : he does not frighten her into pro- 
ductiveness. And the same holds true in his dealings 
with men. He inclines men : he does not drive. 
He reasons with them ; he convinces their judgment ; 
he excites their affection ; he stirs them to gratitude ; 
and so brings them by beneficent supervision, through 
all the stages of growth, until they are ripe and ]Der- 
fect in sanctified habits and inclinations. 

My hearers, you who are not professing Christians, 
let me invite you to Christ, not as to a judge and 
taskmaster, but as to a friend faithful and tender, — 
as to an elder brother. Come, not to put your necks 
under the yoke of law, but to put your hearts under 
the influence of love. Come to something better 
than threat and penalty, better than precept and the 
letter, better than rule and ceremony ; come to life 
and the persuasions of the Spirit. I do not address 
your fears : I should despise you if you could seek 
heaven through fear of hell. I address jout judg- 
ment, your conscience, your sense of gratitude, jour 
regard for virtue, your desire to be better. These 
all of you have and feel, because you live in a land 
where the Spirit works. A heathen does not feel 
them ; but you feel them, because God has poured out 
of his Spirit upon jou. You are like flowers upon 
which the dew falls and the sun shines. You live in a 



CHEIST THE DELIVEEEK. 147 

gospel atmosphere. God is shining day by day upon 
you out of his mercy. As the solar beam draws the 
face of the flower upward unto itself, so heaven wooes 
you toward its warmth and brightness. You are 
solicited as intelligent beings by an intelligent Being. 
Be rational, then : fling not the best chance of your 
life away from you as a fool might fling away a jewel, 
not knowing its value. If you are sick, why forbid a 
physician to enter your house ? If you are blind, 
why do you shrink from the blessed hand whose 
touch would give you sight ? Why do you make your- 
self heathen in your condition when God has made 
you Christian ? If Christianity enslaved you ; if it 
broke you down and humiliated you ; if it addressed 
your cowardice, and thereby advertised its own base- 
ness, — I never would urge it as something desirable 
upon you. But when I see and know that its object 
is to make you free, make you more self-sustaining, 
more noble in every thing that relates to manhood ; 
when I know, from its experience in my own life, 
that it can convert your weakness into strength, re- 
fine your grossness, sweeten your acidity, and make 
your barrenness to be fruitful, — I can not and will 
not forbear. You must become Christian, or arm 
yourselves weekly against my importunities. 

Christ not only delivered men from the fear of the 
lav/, but he delivered them also from the bonds of 
superstition. There is no greater curse than this. 
What the worse form of human chattelism is to the 
body, superstition is to the mind and soul. A super- 
stitious mind is an enslaved mind. It is in bonda^'e 



148 CHEIST THE DELIVEEEE. 

to an overwhelming fear. No price is too costly to 
purchase escape from its terror. Natural affection, 
even, is trampled under foot ; and the mother becomes 
less thoughtful of her babe than the tigress of its 
young. The brute will brave death for her cub, and, 
with the hunter's spear in her side, die caressing her 
young ; but the mother, under the terrible spell of 
her superstition, forgets the ties of blood, and flings 
the babe at her breast into the Ganges to appease 
the anger of its god. Behold the car of the Jug- 
gernaut ! Its wheels are massive, their periphery 
vast ; yet every inch of their circumference is stained 
with human blood. How many centuries did its 
wheels revolve I How often, enthroned in horrid 
state, did Superstition ride along a path paved with 
human bodies to its triumph ! How have men gazed 
and gazed upon its awful front', wrought by rude 
carving into fantastic shapes and figures monstrous, 
which ignorance had deified, and then, seeing, as 
they thought, a glimpse of heaven beneath its wheels, 
cast themselves under their bloody tires ! But this is 
not the only form with which Superstition expresses 
itself, and Avherein its evil is shown. The mind is as 
a city, — circular in form, and with gates opening out 
in every direction : every gate is possessed by the 
enemy. Judgment, conscience, affection, timidity, 
courage, — Superstition seizes hold of every faculty, 
and reduces them all to her merciless sway. Her 
servant and ally is priestcraft : they go together, — 
confederated robbers of human rights and human 
joys. Where these are, farewell liberty, farewell 



CHRIST THE DELIVERER. 149 

progress, farewell piety ! They represent cruelty, 
arrogance, tyranny. The Juggernaut and the Inquisi- 
tion ; the one-man power seeking to protect itself 
from the hate and satire of men behind the bulwark of 
infallibility, — a dogma which '' Punch " could laugh 
out of existence in half a century, — these are the 
result of superstition. To these, men had been in 
bondage, — a bondage which cramped their power, 
and withered all their sinews ; which made science im- 
possible, piety something to be dreaded, and excluded 
liberty from the vocabulary of human speech. From 
these Christ came to deliver men : from these he 
has delivered all those who have believed on him. 
The first thing that Christianity does is to remove 
from the mind ignorance, credulity, pride, and all 
the co-ordinate causes of superstition. It represents 
a thorough horticulture. It takes hold of the evil, 
and pulls it up by the roots ; threading it out to its 
last fibre, until there is not even a filament of it 
left. It brings freedom to every faculty of the mind, 
— to inquisitiveness, and science is born ; to reason, 
and philosophy appears ; to imagination, and " Para- 
dise Lost," that genesis and revelation of song, is 
written. It quickens all the germinant capabilities 
in the bosoms of men ; starts to action every dor- 
mant aspiration ; and as the consummate flower, the 
blossoming of all precedent growths, civil and reli- 
gious liberty unfold their loveliness — which so many 
of old desired to see, but died, being unable — before 
the world's admiring gaze. 

All hail, then, to Christianity, who comes as the 



150 CHEIST THE DELIVERER. 

emancipator both of the mhids and the bodies of 
men ! Hail to that system of truth, in the atmosphere 
of which no slave can breathe ; in which the strong- 
est fetter melts as ice smitten by the rays of the 
summer's sun ! Hail to that Christ, the Anointed of 
God, — equal in essence to the Father, and revealer of 
his love, — who is walking over the earth in power, 
visiting every barbarous tribe, every enslaved race, 
with the proclamation of their emancipation in his 
right hand, and the guaranties of their rights in his 
left ! Behind them, and on either side, Plenty ap- 
pears. As he mc ves on, groans are changed to sounds 
of joy ; and the spear which cruelt}' had pointed for 
the human breast is driven into the ground ! 

My friends, can a system which works such results 
be overturned ? Will the suffrage of the world, tliink 
you, vote against the evidence of the senses ? Will 
civilized America vote down her magnificent social 
and religious system for the polished barbarism of 
ancient Greece ? Will a nation that has drunk from 
the fountains of divine truth, that finds the water 
their fathers drank still sweet and nourishing, ever 
give up the New Testament, and adopt the dialogues 
of Plato and the maxims of the slave Epictetus for 
their divine books ? Such a suspicion is an impeach- 
ment of men's sanity. Now and then, an ill-balanced, 
idiosyncratic person, puffed with the harmless conceit 
that he may yet be the Socrates of Boston ; who lost 
his common sense in some old German library, and 
failed to find it again when he bought his ticket 
for America, — some such person, possibly a dozen i 



CHEIST THE DELIVERER. 151 

such persons, may be found pervaded with such a 
dream ; but the people, as a body, care nothing for 
their theories or their predictions. Such individuals 
have their use also. They serve to illustrate the 
largeness of that liberty which Christianity has se- 
cured for them. 

The fourth and last deliverance that I shall men- 
tion, which Christ wrought out for man, is deliver- 
ance from the fear of God. Of course, there is a 
sense in which a Christian fears God, even as there 
is a sense in which a child fears a loving and dearly- 
loved parent, — a reverential, holy deference for his 
authority. But this is not the fear which terrifies and 
distracts, which debases and makes servile. When 
the fatherhood of God is fully apprehended, — a re- 
lation which not one in a dozen Christians adequately 
realize ; when the filial bond is felt as a child feels 
the clasp of the mother's supporting and guiding 
hand ; when adoption is not a mere mental conclu- 
sion, but is lovingly and constantly evidenced by the 
Spirit in the soul, — then fear has no foothold in 
the heart of the disciple ; then upon his face rests the 
light of implicit trust ; and the look of his eye is 
the look of unquestioning love. AVell did the apos- 
tle John declare that " love casteth out fear. . . . He 
who feareth is not made perfect in love." May God 
forgive us our unbelief, out of which our timidit}^, as 
a dwarfed child from a sinful parent, comes ! 

My friends, ponder these things. Be more thorough 
in your habits of analysis. Love and fear are exact 
opposites. They cannot exist together in the soul in 



152 CHRIST THE DELIVEEEE. 

its outgoings toward one object. A babe fears a 
stranger ; but who ever knew a babe to fear its 
mother's face ? Put a father and his little son face 
to face, and is it possible that either could fear the 
other ? And yet why not ? Because there is love 
between them : every malevolent temper is exorcised 
by the charm of this sentiment. But some other 
man that son might fear : or if his father should 
meet him in some lonely place, and in such darkness 
that he could not recognize his face, I can conceive 
that he might fear even his father, because he would 
not know that he was his father, but suppose he 
was some other man, — perhaps a cruel man and a foe. 
Well, very much like that it was once between men 
and God. God met men in darkness, and they did 
not know his face : they did not know who or what 
God was at all. They saw his works, and knew that 
he was powerful and wise and vast. On every hand 
they saw such elements connected with cruelty. 
Whoever had power used it to work his will on his 
enemies, enslave the weak, and lord it over the poor. 
Power meant, in those old days, disregard of justice, 
license, cruelty, and every kind of wicked indulgence. 
Reasoning from analogy, God would use his power 
to satisfy his own passions, and carry out his own 
selfish plans. Hence men feared God, — feared him 
as a slave feared his master, as a soldier fears his 
general, as a courtier fears his king. That God 
was king, they knew ; but, that God was their own 
dear father, they did not know, and had no means 
of knowing. 



CHRIST THE DELIVEREE. 1C3 

At last, Christ came. Came for what ? To reveal 
the Father. In Christ, God manifested himself. In 
him men saw the will of God revealed, and all the 
paternal sentiments of his heart were made known. 
And when Christ, in the results of his life and death, 
is received of the soul ; when, through the lens-like 
medium of his words and acts, our eye being un- 
dimmed by prejudice, by the harshness of traditional 
interpretation of Scripture, by physical disease, we 
see God, — doubt and terror are removed. No more 
do we shake, no more tremble, as we think of meeting 
him. No more is the grave dismal, but is as the 
doorway of a palace through which the children of a 
king pass to kiss him on his throne. No more is the 
valley of death a valley of shadow ; for a marvel- 
lous light, unlike that of the sun, fills it and floods 
it ; and the valley is full of radiant forms ; and all 
who pass into it are on the instant changed, and 
become radiant as themselves. And in the joy of their 
surprise they begin to chant ; and hand linked in 
hand, wing infolding wing, they go forward singing, 
" O Death ! where is thy sting ? O Grave ! where is 
thy victory ? " 

This is what Christianity does to the soul in its 
relations to God. A believer is called a " child of 
God." Beautiful name for a lovely relation ! Chris- 
tians are regarded in heaven as " heirs and joint-heirs 
with Christ." There is no alienation, no estrange- 
ment, between believers and the Father. We have 
been brought nigh and reconciled by the blood of 
Christ. " Brought nigh " ! " reconciled " ! — think 



154 CHRIST THE DELIVEEEK 

what these terms imply. The love between God and 
his children is a reciprocal love, a sincere love, a fear- 
less love. There is nothing, no stroke, no calamity, 
" neither life nor death," as Paul insists, can sever 
the cords that unite us with God. It is not a contin- 
gent love : it is a love not born of circumstance and 
temporary condition. The child errs, disobeys, re- 
volts, hides himself from his mother's face for years ; 
but he loves his mother still. The mother loves her 
child still. Their love is a love born of begetting and 
being begotten. It began with the child's birth: it 
will endure after the child and mother are dead. For 
love like this, being not of flesh and blood, but of the 
spirit, cannot perish. It is immortal. So it is be- 
tween God and his spiritual children. The Christian 
may err, may revolt, may wander from God : but there 
is no distance, no rebellion, no lapse, that can sever 
the renewed soul from the Author of its regenerated 
life ; for the Lord is able to keep such as have given 
themselves into his care. 

I do not say that this is done without the employ- 
ment of agents and means ; for it is not. But this 
does not affect the result. The mother is not less 
the preserver of her child's life because she does it 
through the agency of food and clothes and medi- 
cines. The Christian is kept : let that suffice. 

Now, then, I say, in view of all this, — of what 
God is, as revealed in Christ, — it is impossible for a 
Christian, properly enlightened by the Spirit, to fear 
God, — as impossible as it is for a child to fear a 
lovino; mother. We mi^ht fear the condemnation 



CHEIST THE DELIYEEER 155 

for sin ; "buttliere is now no condemnation." We 
might fear death ; " but the sting of death is sin, 
and the strength of sin is the law." " But now we 
are delivered from the law," as Paul says ; " that 
being dead in which we were once held." "We might 
fear the grave ; " but, if the Spirit of Him who raised 
up Jesus from the dead dwell in us. He that raised 
up Christ from the dead ^hall also quicken our mor- 
tal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in us." We 
might fear lest we had not been renewed ; but how 
can we, " when the Spirit beareth witness with our 
spirit that we are the children of God " ? " What shall 
we say, then, to these things ? If God be for us, who 
can be against us? " If, as the last resort of a timid 
soul, you forebode the future, and cry out, " At least 
I cannot but fear the judgment," I respond in the 
words of Scripture, — words that cover the whole 
ground, — " It is God who justifieth." And so cloud 
after cloud melts ; the blue grows upon the eye as it 
gazes ; and the sky upon which the dying believer 
looks is cloudless. 

I have thus, friends, spoken to you in exposition 
of the four kinds of bondage from which Christ de- 
livers man, — the bondage of ceremony, of law, of 
superstition, and of fear. In view of what has been 
said, may not Christ, with justice, be called the De- 
liverer ? If it be a praiseworthy deed to publish free- 
dom to the slave, to carry liberty to the down-trod- 
den and oppressed, as history has universally taught 
it to be, in what form of speech can I fitly express 
the claim of Christ to the gratitude of mankind? 



156 CHRIST THE DELIVERER 

Who, — tell me, ye students of history, — who has 
broken so many fetters, levelled so many thrones 
builded on injustice, redeemed so many human be- 
ings out of direst bondage, as He whom we here, 
every one of us rescued by him, call our Saviour and 
Redeemer? Go to once heathen lands, and behold 
how he has given knowledge to the ignorant, en- 
nobled life by teaching man its noblest use, intro- 
duced an immortal hope into the bosom of despair, 
and upon thousands that were sitting in darkness and 
the shadow of death caused a great light to arise 
and shine. Has done it, did I say ? nay, he is doing 
it continually. Not a day passes in which he does 
not repeat his past efforts, and multiply his triumphs. 
Around him, as he marches, victories accumulate ; 
and the path along which he walks is strewn with 
the shattered shields and overturned chariots of his 
foes. 

It is not the dying, but the living, not the buried, 
but the risen, not the captive, but the victorious 
Christ, that you have chosen as ^^our Lord. The 
hours of his debasement, his suffering, his death, have 
passed. Never again will men mock him; never 
again will the scourge touch him ; never again will a 
sepulchre hold him, even for an hour. To-da}" he is 
exalted. The glory that he had with the Father be- 
fore the world was is his again. To-day he sits reg- 
nant over thrones and principalities and powers : 
they lay their crowns around his feet; they pros- 
trate themselves in loving homage. The highest in 
heaven deem it an honor to praise him. 



CHEIST THE DELITEEEE. 157 

Do YOU say, " This is too vast. I have no standard 
by which to gauge such dignity. You put my Saviour 
too far above me, — too faraway. Sketch me some 
other picture. Let me see his face as the face of a 
man, only ennobled with the spirit of a God. Let me 
hear him speak in tones that can enter the ear. Let 
me touch him ; at least, lay my finger on the hem of 
his garment " ? 

Behold, then, j'our Saviour ! He stands like a statue 
vivified and animate. His feet are on a rock. In 
either hand he holds a scroll. On one is traced the 
Golden Rule : upon the other I see these words, 
" On earth peace." Suspended across liis breast are 
the beatitudes. His face shines as the face of an 
angel in the act of gazing at. God. Around his feet 
lie the dying and the dead. The dead look like those 
who have fallen asleep in peace : the lips of the dy- 
ing suggest the presence of a smile. Afar off is a 
great multitude of men and women, each carrying 
some load. To these he is speaking. Oh, blessed be 
God ! what words are these I hear ? — " Come unto me, 
all ye who labor and are hea^y-laden, and I will give 
you rest." This is your Saviour, friend. What do 
you say to him ? Say, "J^ Lord and my Grodl " 



SABBATH MORJflJfG, APRIL SO, 1871. 



SERMOK 



SUBJECT. -DIVINE JUSTICE. 

"Justice and judgment are the habitation of Thy throne." — 
Ps. Ixxxix. 14. 

I WISH to speak to you this morning upon the 
justice of God, or divine justice. Not a few say 
that many of our pulpits are cautiously reticent upon 
this subject, and that they preach of the mild to the 
exclusion of the severe virtues of God. I desire that 
none should be able to truthfully say this of this pul- 
pit ; at least, while I am in it as a preacher. I believe 
in the Fatherhood of God, as you all know ; in his 
love and mercy and compassionate feelings toward us 
all : yea, I believe in these so fully, that I believe in 
his justice as well. For no one, as I look at it, can ever 
adequately comprehend the greatness of God's love, 
who does not hold, with all the forces of his heart 
and mind, that justice and judgment are the habita- 
tion of his throne. What I have to say this morning, 
in expanding my theme, may be grouped under these 
two heads : — 

1. The justice of God as an element of his govern- 
ment; and, — 



DIVINE JUSTICE. 159 

2. As a rule of his conduct. 

When I speak of the government of God, you must 
please remember that I use it simpl}^ to aid the con- 
ception, not to make any distinction between it and 
God himself. God is his own government, both in its 
principles and its administration. The President of 
the universe is without a cabinet. No councillors sit 
with him ; no adviser is called to his side ; no divis- 
ion of interest exists to provoke differences in that 
heavenly nationality. No opposition, even in thought, 
is tolerated or dreamed of. Among the intelligences 
that people the invisible world, there is but one 
throne ; and before the glory of that the highest arch- 
angel veils his face. Throughout the whole universe, 
over stars, systems, and worlds, one sceptre rules. 
On the bounty of one Supreme Benevolence all ani- 
mate beings feed, and to the authority of one Central 
Will all modes of life are subject. 

The government of God is thus shown to be noth- 
ing less than God himself, and the elements of it the 
very essence of the Deity. With a Being thus om- 
nipotent in his power, and unrestrained in his exercise 
of it, by whom all differences must eventually be de- 
cided, and the destiny of every living creature fixed, 
what would naturally and properly be the predomi- 
nating principle ? What would be the corner-stone 
first laid, and upon which the whole vast superstruc- 
ture rests ? 

Before we hastily answer this question, let us call 
to mind that the government of God has for its sub- 
jects two widely-different classes of beings, — the just 



160 DIYIXE JUSTICE. 

and the unjust, the loyal and the rebellious. This is 
indisputably true, and changes the complexion of the 
entire case. If any inquire, " How ? " I reply. In this 
way: Were all the subjects of God's government 
pure and right-minded, the severe virtues of God 
would have no occasion for exercise ; the terrors of 
the law would lie unmanifested, and the bolt hidden 
in the bosom of the cloud, and God, in the company 
of his own pure beings, could lay aside his harness, 
and rest in the security of untempted innocence. In 
such a society, where there would be nothing to re- 
strain, nothing against Avhich to guard ; where, through 
the lapse of vast ages, nothing would occur to ruffle 
the serenity of the Divine Mind, or disturb the quiet 
of God's kingdom, — love and the milder graces would, 
undoubtedly, be in the ascendant. But such is not 
the case. The reverse is true. So far back as human 
annals extend, or inspired narrative reveals, evil has 
contended with good; and God, as the arbitrator be- 
tween the two, has been kept day by day on the 
alert. How active the divine energies must con- 
stantly be to decide the countless questions of recti- 
tude as they hourly arise I How keen and keenly 
alive must be the sympathies and the antipathies of 
God ! That you may realize how intensely active are 
the discriminating energies of Jehovah, mentally esti- 
mate the occasions, both past and present, calculated 
to tax their closest exercise. Consider first in time 
as in significance, the fall of the angels. 

I make no attempt to explain the mystery, how be- 
ings once pure, sinless, and beyond the reach of guile, 



DIVINE JUSTICE. 161 

could by any means so far have declined in yirtue, 
that their celestial natures, imbittered, lost their 
lovely characteristics, and became utterly depraved. 
But so it was. The fact is recorded, that for once 
at least the hills of heaven resounded with war ; for 
once, intestine strife rudely disturbed the tranquillity 
of the skies ; for once, the chariot of God Avas har- 
nessed for battle, and the Eternal defended with his 
thunders the stabilit}^ of his throne. 

The conflict was joined, the rebellion crushed ; and 
God stood victor on that awful field. What were 
his sentiments ? What did he do toward the rebel- 
lious ? You all remember. No false sensitiveness 
distracted, in that hour, the decision of God. 'No 
maudlin pity wept over thwarted devils, or pleaded 
the greatness of their temptation to mitigate their 
fall. Their sin was premeditated, their rebellion 
outrageous and unreasonable. Hell, whatever of 
punishment that may symbolize, was excavated for 
the emergency ; and into it they were flung. Thrones 
and principalities and powers once radiant, who 
walked amid the applause of heaven, went out in 
darkness. They faded; they fell: and God's loyal 
ones lifted up their voices to indorse the justice and 
wisdom of the award. 

Thus the earliest data we can gather of God, the 
first exhibition of his government made to the eyes 
of men, is found to be unhesitating, impartial, and 
inflexible justice. 

The next historic exhibition we have of the Deity 
is his action in the case of our great progenitor, 
Adam. 



162 DIVINE JUSTICE. 

You know the circumstances of condescension on 
the part of God which attended the introduction of 
our common parent into life. As one reads the nar- 
rative of the creation, he cannot but be impressed 
with the thought, that the birth of man was a favorite 
conception of the Divine Mind. Actively entertained 
as an idea ages before the consummation, vast periods 
of time had been emploj^ed to create a sphere worthy 
of his faculties. Whatever creative ingenuity could 
advise, or energy effect, was done ; whatever ele- 
ment could forward the undertaking was drafted into 
the divine work. Every result lovel}^ to the eye or 
pleasing to the senses was produced, until such a har- 
mony had been reached in taste, color, and sound, 
that God himself was satisfied. He paused in his 
work, looked, and said, " It is very good," — superla- 
tive praise from superlative wisdom to pronounce it. 

At last, man, the crowning work of all, so far as 
physical beauty and powers of adaptation go, and 
endowed with intelligence like to God's in kind, was 
placed upon the earth. For this superior being a 
suitable home had been made ready, and to him all 
life was made subject. Thus located, surrounded by 
all he could desire, and tlie favorite of Heaven, Adam, 
as the child of God, began his existence. One com- 
mand alone was laid upon him, trivial in all respects 
save as a test of his obedience. This injunction 
he disobeyed. In full maturity of his manhood, he 
yielded like a silly child. What followed? Must 
tliis man, who had only yielded to the persuasions of 
love ; Avho had only complied with the prayer of her 



DIVINE JUSTICE. 163 

given by Gocl himself to be his companion, — must this 
man, in the creation of whose dwelhng so many ages 
had been expended, and so many resources taxed ; 
whose birth brought joy to heaven, and dehght to 
God ; whose parentage linked him as with ties of 
blood to the celestial orders to whom he and his 
would one day be united, — must this man, for this 
one disobedience, this one slip, fall forever, be ex- 
iled from the home so expensively fitted up for him, 
lose his high prerogatives, his heavenly associations, 
and go down at last like a mere animal into the dust ? 
Could not., would not, God, for once, modify this ruling, 
and let his favorite begin, as it were, once more anew? 
Surely, if God is, as some argue, too merciful to con- 
demn, too benevolent to cast man aside, imperfect 
though he be, here was a golden opportunity for him 
to exercise such benevolence. Here was a chance to 
forgive such as even he would seldom have. Here 
he might make an exhibition of himself that would 
bring hope to a despondent world. But, my hearers, 
what did he do ? I answer. He did just what he said 
he would ; what m every such case and circumstance, 
past, present, and to come, he has done and will do. 
The justice of God had been tampered with, its right- 
eous and salutary ruling disregarded ; and though all 
the heavens should plead, and the angels fill the skies 
with lamentations, the penalty must follow. The 
word of the Unchangeable had gone forth. The uni- 
verse had heard and made note of the proclamation ; 
and now it looked to behold what would follow. 
Nothing less than the veracity of God, you see, was on 



164 DIVINE JUSTICE. 

trial. Would he keep his word ? would he consign 
his favorite to death ? would he abide by his own 
ruling ?. Such were the whispers that filled the uni- 
verse. Do not suppose this picture poetic and im- 
probable. The angels know more of God now than 
then. Calvary showed them how he loves justice. 
When " he spared not his own Son, but delivered him 
up," that he might be just, and yet the justifier of the 
unjust, heaven for the first time felt the inflexibility 
of its King. In the agony of Christ, angels read, and 
trembled as they read, the virtue of God. In the death 
of the Only-Begotten, they beheld the enduring wrath 
of Jehovah against sin. The dying groan of Christ not 
only rent the earth, but filled the universe with an in- 
finite conviction. 

And so, for the second time, did God make a reve- 
lation of himself; and justice again, you see, stood re- 
vealed as the underlying element of his government. 

This proof from history might be continued by 
many references, and, in each case, be conclusive : 
for what God has done is only what he will forever 
do in like circumstances ; for he has done nothing but 
what is right, and from that he cannot vary. 

I instance but one more case ; to it I have already 
alluded, — the death of Christ, its relations to the 
justice of God. 

At the coming of the Saviour, a crisis had been 
reached in the history of the race. Man, through the 
baseness of his degeneracy, was fast losing his natural 
superiority over the beasts of the field. His spiritual 
perceptions were darkened ; his social life was corrupt 



DIVINE JUSTICE. 165 

to the last degree ; and his tendencies, with each 
successive generation, were growing more and more 
gross. Surely something must be done. Now, if 
ever, is his condition to be improved. Surely it can- 
not be that God is wanting in mercy, or that pity is 
a stranger to his breast. " Can the angels behold us, 
and not be grieved ? " men might exclaim. " Are the 
eyes of our Father blind that he cannot see the mis- 
ery of his children, or those who live beyond the stars 
too distant to hear our cry ? " No : the eyes of the 
Deity are ever open, and his mercy pleadeth for all. 

Lost and ruined as they were, God still loved the 
race : the patient Father yearned over his wayward 
children, and decided that they should be redeemed. 
But there stood his law ; it had been broken : there 
stood his executive energies ; they had been defied. 
How might the one be satisfied, and the other ap- 
peased ? An easy matter, indeed, as some judge of 
God ; an infinitely-difScult problem, as the solution 
proved. For when the mind of God began to cast 
about, if I may so express it, to ascertain what would 
satisfy the judicial element of his government, and 
make atonement to the transgressed and insulted law, 
what and how much was found to be necessary to sat- 
isfy ? Would repentance in man suffice ? if so, why 
was not that alone enjoined ? Would the pleadings of 
all the angelic orders, though they had prostrated 
tliemselves before the throne, and supplicated forgiv- 
ness for man, have availed ? If so, why was not that 
attempted? Could the love of God itself, and the 
sweet importunity of his mercy, have persuaded the 



166 DIVINE JUSTICE. 

judgment of the Eternal ? If so, wliy was another 
manifestation made ? No, my friends ! Ye who love 
to know what God is, observe how, unpersuaded by 
the repentance of men, deaf to the prayers of the 
angels, back of love and mercy stood the judicial ele- 
nient of Jehovah's nature, — an element by which all 
other of his attributes are regulated, and on which 
all the doings of his vast administrations are builded. 
This element is justice. It spake ; and well might 
the mansions of heaven become silent as the grave 
as they listened to the greatness of the demand. The 
glory of no angel was bright enough, that by his de- 
basement atonement could be made ; the life of no 
potentate, the exaltation of no throne, through all 
the spiritual empire, was valuable or lofty enough, that 
by their death and fall man might live. The element 
of the divine nature spared not its own. The vio- 
lated law appealed to Justice for an ample vindication; 
and Justice, lifting its hand above powers and princi- 
palities, pointed its finger at the Son of God. Its de- 
mand was complied with ; and then, for a third time, a 
manifestation of divine justice was made, such as the 
thrones of heaven will never forget, nor the depths 
of hell fail to remember. The angels saw what they 
had long desired to look into, — the nature of Jeho- 
vah ; its holiness, its hatred of sin, and its mercy. 
The universe felt safe ; in God it saw the bulwark of 
its protection : and hell, which had lifted itself for a 
season in hope of a partial victory at least, fell back 
into its own waves, stricken with the paralysis of ut- 
ter inability to cope with the Eternal. 



DIVIXE JUSTICE. 1G7 

TVe will now consider, in the second place, tlie 
justice of God as the rule of his conduct. 

I must ask that all of you remember that God rules 
over an intelligent universe ; over worlds inhabited 
by beings of moral capacity and intellectual power, 
and capable of vast development. From this it fol- 
lows that the doings of God are looked upon by intel- 
ligent spectators, and that innumerable eyes are fixed 
in steady inquisition upon his movements. That such 
inspection is consistent with the highest reverence 
is seen in the fact, that God, in the revelation he has 
made of himself, has invited it, and that it occurs in 
strict sequence from the possession of the poAvers he 
has bestowed upon us ; for he certainly would never 
have given us the impulse and the guiding thread, had 
he not wished us to push in and explore the labyrinth. 
My conception of the universe, therefore, is of a 
vast amphitheatre, from whose star-lighted galleries, 
rising row on row in radiant succession, innumerable 
multitudes in thronged admiration contemplate with 
ever-increasing delight the marvellous doings of Him 
" for whom and by whom all things consist." The 
subjects of God's authority are thus seen to be con- 
temptible neither by the smallness of their capacity 
nor the brevity of their existence ; for they are created 
in his image, and insured against whatever accident 
by their immortahty. 

You will please also note, that, so far as man is con- 
cerned, the subjects of the divine government are at 
present either in a state of alienation from or of pro- 
gression toward the status of perfectly sinless beings; 



168 DIVINE JUSTICE. 

that human life is intended to be, and in fact is, noth- 
ing more than a disciplinary stage and test ; and that, 
concerning man's fitness to enter the next higher 
grade, when he shall, by the conditions of his mortali- 
t}', pass from this, God, necessarily, is himself the sole 
competent judge. You at once see how profound 
must be the interest that the All-seeing must take in. 
our every act, and how constant and discriminating 
must be his arbitrations in reference to us. 

In such a multitude of cases, where thousands of 
decisions are daily being made, — decisions which are 
final, and on which the fate of undying existences 
eternally depend, — whoever pretends to judge must 
be guided, not by impulse, nor by accidental emotions, 
but by certain fixed and immutable principles of right. 
The judicial renderings of this tribunal, at least, 
must be based on laws and maxims of rectitude be- 
yond cavil ; and this insures two things : — 

1st, That no decision will go beyond or come short 
of justice. 

2d, When once published, it can never be revoked. 
From this supreme court of the universe, held only 
by the Chief Expounder of universal law, there can 
be no appeal : from the highest it cannot be carried 
up to a higher, nor from the wisest may it be adju- 
dicated by a wiser. 

You now see how in strict sequence follows this 
conclusion, — that God, being such as he is, and the 
universe such as it is, the claims of justice must be 
strictly and clearly complied with before the milder 
virtues of his character can find opportunity for ex- 



DIVINE JUSTICE. 169 

ercise. Sin, of all degrees, does so hurt the inherent 
virtue of God, and resist his righteousness, that the 
integrity and perfection of his nature cannot stand 
unless he vindicates and satisfies the judicial element 
of his government. The executive energies of God 
can no more fail to vindicate the rectitude of his 
decrees by enforcing them than a sheriff can re- 
main faithful to his oath, who, out of pit}^ refuses to 
commit a condemned prisoner to jail. The decisions 
of the Divine Mind are no less sure to be executed 
because God himself is his own executive. The 
Eternal cannot rebel against his own nature, or 
refuse, under whatever stress of circumstance, to 
enforce his own long and clearly published decrees. 
God cannot be false to himself, and remain himself. 
It was this consideration which shut the gates of Para- 
dise against our first parents, and barred them forever 
to us, their children. When he had once decided 
upon the penalty of death as the fitting award, 
should Adam disobey his command, death, and noth- 
ing short, must inevitably be Adam's fate after he 
disobeyed. To obey or transgress was, with our first 
parents, optional. The fullest ability to do either 
was necessarily theirs ; but, once having transgressed, 
nothing short of the annihilation of God's essence 
could prevent the penalty from being inflicted. Thus 
it came about that Adam was ejected Eden because of 
his disobedience ; and on him, and on all his descend 
ants, spiritual alienation and death fell. The eternal 
principle of God's government had been violated, and 
bis inward virtue outraged ; and the essential ele- 



170 DIVINE JUSTICE. 

ments of either lield him to a strict execution of the 
sentence, in order that his authority might be vindi- 
cated, and the grievous slight put upon his nature 
made good. 

My friends, centuries have multiplied themselves 
into ages since the day Adam's sentence was pro- 
nounced ; but each, as you all know, has borne wit- 
ness to the veracity of the record. Generations have 
followed each other in countless succession, and suc- 
cessively have the pomp and pride and beauty of 
each vanished away. The mausoleum of kings, 
sculptured with the record of proud deeds, the world 
to-day notes little of ; and the neglected graves of the 
unhonored bear mournful but indisputable witness 
to the impartial execution of the decree. Nay, we, 
even at so vast a remove, stand under the shadow of 
the old curse, and demonstrate the immutable justice 
of God by every grave we dig. The cloud rests over 
us yet ; and on us and on our children still descend pes- 
tilence and death. Like exiled Adam, we, too, still 
stand and gaze back upon our Eden, before whose 
barred gates a worse than flaming sword waves either 
way. 

In the iron grasp of the Eternal's government, more 
difficult to be relaxed than to the ante-Christian age 
appeared the relentless hand of the Fates, do we, there- 
fore, as individual transgressors of that government 
to-day stand. Between the decisions against sin, of 
the Supreme Will of the universe, who asks not our. 
assent to his decrees, and our repeated and persistent 
dereliction, are we held as in the clamp of a vise. An 



DIVINE JUSTICE. 171 

infinite and inexorable pressure is tlius brought to 
bear upon our souls. Under the ponderous mountain 
of our own guilt, which the inflexible justice of God 
cannot lighten by a single ounce, are we all, left to 
the workings of a just and holy law, being slowly yet 
surely crushed to death. The pressure is but slightly 
realized in this life : but each year, like the revolution 
of a screw, adds to it ; and, operated through infinite 
ages, the closeness of it will finally become unendu- 
rable. 

What chance is there, then, for man to escape ? I ap- 
peal to every impenitent and thoughtful man present, 
and ask him to point out, if he can, some path by which 
to run from underneath this overhanging and slowly- 
settling doom. If you take the wings of the morn- 
ing, and fly to the uttermost parts of the earth, what 
will it avail ? Lo, and behold, God is there ! Into 
what depth can you plunge, or into what height can 
you mount, or in what darkness crouch, where the 
decision of God will not find you ? In such a flight 
of conscious guilt from deserved punishment the feet 
of terror itself would lag like a snail's, and the dark- 
est midnight be illumined with a radiance greater 
than that of a thousand suns : for the justice of 
God is as a circumference round about sin ; and the 
sinner is, and continues to be, wherever he goes, the 
movable centre of tortures, out of which he can never, 
of himself alone, escape. There is no mask nor man- 
tle that can conceal the face of guilt from the clear 
gaze of God. The timid and the bold, the pure and 
the vile, must meet him at last, eye to eye. 



172 DIVINE JUSTICE. 

If, now, neither distance nor space, nor lapse of 
time, can shield you from the wrath of a holy God, 
which he must feel while he remains holy ; if at every 
turn you make, like a wounded and frightened 
deer, you run against your foes, and are brought to 
bay; if neither your powers of body nor inventive 
cunning can break through the deadly toils ; if you 
cannot save yourselves, and the hour draws nigh in 
which you will stand face to face with the penalty, — 
what will be the result ? I hope you who are im- 
penitent in this audience will look this matter in the 
face ; for it will do no good to shut your eyes, and re- 
fuse to see what is so undeniably drawing near to 
you. 

I can imagine but two possible contingencies. I 
would gladly mention others did tliey exist. 

The first is, that God will lower his demands, and 
yield to you. 

I mention this, not because I deem it possible, but 
because I know men in your position comfort them- 
selves with false hopes, and this among others, and 
imagine that God will, out of pity, be less severe with 
you than some believe. It has been the object of 
this argument to-day to meet just such errors by 
causing you to realize that God's government is not 
a loose congregation of powers, but a compact and 
immutable system; and that it is administered in strict 
harmony with invariable principles and eternal usage, 
and not with emotional impulse and the accidental 
risings of merciful sentiment. And this, not only 
what I have advanced, but the very nature of things, 



DIVINE JUSTICE. 173 

proves. For who is so insane as to imagine tliat God 
at this late day (if I may so speak) will revoke the 
decisions made at the birth of man, ignore the past 
policy of his administration, and slight the imperative 
requirements of his government ? Who is fool enough 
to argue, that for his sake, worm that he is, the Crea- 
tor and Preserver of worlds will cease to rule in ac- 
cordance with those strict principles of rectitude, 
which he, at the birth of time, decreed as the un- 
changeable laws of the universe ? And, moreover, not 
alone the nature of things and immutable govern- 
ment of God forbid this, but the security of the heav- 
enly world, and the protection of those pure beings 
who either from this or other globes have entered into 
the celestial glory, require that none but perfectly 
sinless beings ever be admitted into their sainted cir- 
cles. Be assured, friends, that, while the heavens 
stand, the angels of God will never be disturbed. 
Into that vast multitude, composed of saint and ser- 
aph, no guile can ever enter. On the banks of the 
river of life none but stainless feet can walk. Though 
a thousand races like ours should perish, yet the pu- 
rity of the heavens must be kept from stain, and 
their marvellous peace eternally preserved. 

Nor will a generous nature desire it to be . other- 
wise. Though we lay on our dying-beds, and felt 
that the first hour after death would be the first of 
an endless torture, yet would we say, " Let thine 
angels, O Lord! remain happy, though we be lost, 
and thy heavens give protection only to the pure, 
albeit we, and such as we, be exiled forever from their 
blessed abodes." 



174 DIVIDE JUSTICE. 

If, then, the nature of God's decrees and the safet}^ 
of the heavenly world alike forbid and make impossi- 
ble any change in his administrations of things, and 
if the demands of the divine and holy law cannot be 
in the least abated, or its execution delayed, surely 
but one alternative remains : as he can not and will 
not yield to you, you must either accept his terms, or 
incur the consequences of refusal. What his demands 
are, you all, everj one of you, are fully aware. They 
are briefly summed up in the formula of the Scrip- 
tures, " Except a man repent and believe, he cannot 
see the kingdom of heaven ; " and again, in those 
other words of the Saviour when he said, " He that 
believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he 
live." 

This is the glory of the atonement, that those who 
were sunk in sin, and irretrievably ruined, should, 
by its conditions, be treated as sinless in the eye of 
God. 

It is only when you contemplate the crucifixion 
of Christ, with the inky blackness of God's wrath, 
merited by every transgressor, forming the back- 
ground, that you behold the glory of the scene. It 
is only by considering the race, each and all, as 
individuals lying hopelessly in condemnation, with 
generation after generation surging, wave-like, to their 
doom, — the cradles of the children growing yearly 
more defiled, and the graves of the aged yearly more 
hopless, — that any soul can intelligently be thank- 
ful for what God has done for the children of men. 
But, friends, when one thus stands looking back over 



DIVINE JUSTICE. 175 

the ruins of a lost world, — lost to God and holiness, 
yea, and even to virtue and decency, — he realizes the 
emphasis of the angelic song that hailed the advent 
of a Saviour to this earth. To them it was a proof 
that Satan should not triumph even in little. Him 
whom heaven had ejected, earth should eject. His 
ambition should be thwarted in its highest and lowest 
aim. Neither the throne nor the footstool of God 
should be unto him as a reward or possession. As 
his foot had never touched the one, so should every 
trace of its imprint be washed from the other. 

No : let no one who dwarfs the justice of God say 
that he can understand his mercy ; for never, save 
as he ponders the inexorable nature of justice, which, 
though a favorite race lay dying, yet, true to its 
righteous instincts, stood inflexible, as she of the 
scales and blinded eyes in ancient story, saying 
the one unalterable sentence, " Without the shed- 
ing of blood there can be to man no remission," 
and when, obedient to this cry, — the sublimity of 
which angels can, if man cannot, appreciate, — he 
sees the Son of God rise, and, descending from his 
throne, offer himself in sacrifice for man, does the 
atonement, in all its majestic proportions, break upon 
him ; and, filled with adoring admiration, he exclaims, 
" Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto 
Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the 
Lamb, for ever and ever ! " 

But, if the justice of God cannot allow those who 
are guilty to go unpunished, it cannot, on the other 
hand, permit the righteous to go unrewarded. The 



176 DIVIDE JUSTICE. 

same immutability which places the one bej'ond a 
doubt necessitates the other. 

And when we consider that th-e sins of the Christian 
have already been punished in his surety Christ, and 
though without any inherent righteousness himself, 
yet by a derived righteousness, he ia made holy, we 
behold on what a reliable basis the expectation of the 
believer rests. In such a one we behold the triumph- > 
ant vindication of the vicarious sufferings and death 
of Christ. " If I have fled to the cross for refuge," he 
may say, " and sincerely pleaded, with faith, forgive- 
ness through his blood, my hold on everlasting life is 
too strong for any power to loosen." If, through the 
conviction and impelling power of the Spirit, a man's 
life has, at last, been placed in harmony with the 
divine desires, and grown under heavenly influence 
in holy graces, we can conceive of no combination of 
evils strong enough to resist its ultimate and har- 
monious union vnih. God. The death of Christ hav- 
ing blotted out the handwriting of ordinance that 
was against us, he himself having taken them out 
of the way and nailed them to his cross when he 
died, the great wall which formerly separated the 
race from God being noAV broken down, razed, utterly 
demolished, and over its ruins a strait and narrow 
way having been mapped out in which our feet can 
tread, such as faithfully follow in it, I make no 
doubt, will at last enter in through the gate, and 
share in the delights of angels. 

O Justice ! thou art beautiful. Calm and majestic 
is thy face. No passion ruffles, no anger darkens it 



DIVINE JUSTICE. 177 

with a frown. Beautiful are thy closed lids, and that 
nice sense of equity making a law unto thyself, for- 
bidding thee to see either poor or rich, high or low, 
guilty or guiltless, lest peradventure pity or fear might 
make thee untrue to thyself, and thou shouldst die 
killed by thy first wrong act. Beautiful are thy 
garments of faultless drapery, thy rounded arm ex- 
tended, and th}" hand of snow grasping the balanced 
scales. No wonder that the ancients worshipped 
thee ; no wonder that they enthroned thee among the 
number of their gods. The human mind cannot 
think of Deity, and not think of thee. O Justice ! 
hear thou our prayer in heaven, thy birthplace and 
the place of thy abode. Descend to-day, and stand 
before this people. Thou art needed in our market- 
places ; thou art needed in our courts ; thou art 
needed in our capitols ; yea, and in our churches 
also art thou needed. Come clothed with a beauty 
beyond the symmetry in which the chisel of the 
Greeks carved thee, beyond the majesty that made 
the canvas of the masters that bore thy likeness im- 
mortal, beyond what we of this careless generation 
know or dream of fitness, and stand revealed before 
us. Come not alone, but bring thy sister Mercy ; 
and standing here in tliis attentive presence, with 
thy left hand holding jMercy by her right, thy right 
holding forth the scales, let thy voice, mingling with 
hers, making sweet music by the union, be heard of 
every ear, saying, " Here we stand, twin-attributes 
of God, born, in one birth, of his love, appointed each 
unto our mission, — the one to protect the innocent, 



178 DIVINE JUSTICE. 

the other to plead for the guilty among men." Then 
will this people say of thee, "O God!" — and the 
sound shall bear the joy of their hearts upon it as the 
great wave bears up the snowy ornament of its white 
foam, — " justice and judgment are the habitation of 
thy throne." 



SAB BATE MORJTIJfQ, MAT 7, 1871. 



SERMOK 



SUBJECT. -THE JUDICIAL ELEMENT IN HUMAN NATURE AND PRACTICE 
"And I SAW the dead, smaix and great, stand before GtOd; 

AND THE BOOKS WERE OPENED; AND ANOTHER BOOK WAS OPENED, WHICH 
IS THE BOOK OF LIFE; AND THE DEAD WERE JUDGED OUT OF THOSE 
THINGS WHICH WERE WRITTEN IN THE BOOKS, ACCORDING TO THEIR 
WORKS." — Kev. XX. 12. 

CERTAIN exceptions have been taken by some 
Avho heard the discourse of last sabbath morn- 
ing, in which you remember I spoke of the justice of 
God as an element of his government and the rule 
of his conduct, on the ground that it made him ap- 
pear harsh and unlovely ; and if such an attribute in 
any such forceful activity as I described did exist, 
still the mass of men would not appreciate the neces- 
sity of it, nor understand the service it may serve in 
the divine economy. These strictures, I judge, were 
in the main honestly made, and convinced me that 
I should do well to make in another discourse the 
application of the principles discussed in the first. 
This I will, with your permission, proceed to do ; and, 
that you may the better remember what I have to 
say, I will epitomize it in the form of ^ topic, -r- the 
judicial element in human nature and practice. 

179 



180 THE JUDICIAL ELEMENT 

I call your attention, then, in the first place, to what 
I think will appear to all of you, upon inspection, to 
be true, that society is organized upon a judicial basis. 
Man, the intelligent agent and observer, judges man. 
Every artist in this city judges all his fellow-artists. 
His art gives him a standard, by which he mentally 
approves or condemns every picture he examines. 
Man, as an author, judges authors. He reads a book 
as a jury hears a case, discriminatingly probing and 
sifting it. So it is^ with you all. You sit in judg- 
ment on every book you read, every picture you see, 
every orator you hear. You are now sitting in judg- 
ment on this sermon and on me. You cannot help 
it ; you would be stupid if you could. So long as it 
shall be natural for you to think, you will be judges. 

I have been greatly interested in the line of thought 
here suggested. I Avas surprised to see to what 
depths and heights this principle applied. I could 
trace the line of application from the very bottom 
to the top of human relation. Wherever you find 
combination, wherever association, there you find the 
judicial sentiment cropping out. Even in children 
and childish amusements you discern it. The games 
of the parlor and play-ground have a judicial rela- 
tion. Let a boy at marbles overstep a certain line, 
disobey a certain rule, and listen to the clamor ! 
What an uproar there is ! How urgent the protest, 
how severe the condemnation ! Every boy, on the 
instant that the rule is infringed, becomes a judge, 
and the culprit is made to feel the weight of deserved 
judgment; Come up higher. Contemplate a group 



IN HUMAN NATURE AND PRACTICE. 181 

of ladies and gentlemen engaged in some social game, 
whist or chess, or whatever you please. One of the 
party makes a doubtful move, or plays out of his or- 
der. The error is instantly detected. His attention 
is called to his mistake. He persists. The book of 
reference is produced, the rule read ; and he stands 
condemned. He set himself consciously or uncon- 
sciously against the judicial sentiment, the sentiment 
of law, of equity, of fair play ; and it asserted itself, 
and its assertion was natural and spontaneous. 

I was passing a marble-yard the other day. I 
leaned against the fence, and watched the workmen. 
A man near me was hewing away at a block. He 
was sharpening an angle. At every dozen strokes 
he would pause, and apply an instrument. And what 
did that mean, pray ? He was bringing his work to 
judgment, I respond. He knew that by his works 
he should at last be judged, and he was securing 
himself against condemnation in that hour. He was 
a judge, you see, unto himself. 

You perceive, friends, that the judicial element is 
not novel to man. Its application is a matter of in- 
dividual and daily experience. It is outside the 
Bible as well as inside of it. It is not a harsh and 
unlovely sentiment, but a protective and salutary 
one. Man resorts to it as to a friend. He uses it 
freely both as regards himself and others. In art, in 
literature, in social life, society demands and pro- 
nounces law and judgment. It may truly be called 
the habit of man's nature. 

Now, friends, I ask, if, in the simple relations and 



182 THE JUDICIAL ELEMENT 

comparatively insignificant acts of life, men pronounce 
judgment, have resort to the judicial attribute, why 
object to the same course in matters complex and im- 
portant ? If the laborer cannot even saw a stick of 
timber, or hew a block of marble, unless he makes 
repeated application of the judicial sentiment, how, 
think you, can he shape his character, control his pas- 
sions, and govern his conduct, without comparing it 
daily and hourly with the standard of absolute recti- 
tude ? Why, look at your civil structure. What does 
the magistrate symbolize ? What does every act of 
legislation signify ? Are these any thing save the 
embodiment of this judicial element extant in society ? 
Is not law, in its very essence, a judgment against 
wrong ? Every member of your legislature is a man 
sitting in judgment. The man who sat, pen in hand, 
following, with unappreciated patience and skill, the 
"proof" of this discourse, was a judge : his position, 
his duty, made him such. And so it is everywhere, 
in every branch of business, in every association of 
life. Wherever you look, there you behold law ; 
where law is, whether executed or unexecuted, there 
you behold judgment. 

Why then, friends, do men wonder and cry out 
because God does the very same thing that they are 
constantly doing ? Why marvel that he should judge 
the very things that they approve or condemn ? Is 
not intelligence in its nature everywhere the same ? 
Is not the moral sense the same ? If man is necessa- 
rily a judge because he is endowed with moral per- 
ception, must not He in whom this perception exists 



IN HUMAN NATUEE AND PEACTICE. 183 

in infinite measure be a judge also ? Where is the 
illogical position, then, in a discourse setting forth the 
judicial element in the divine nature and government ? 
If you cannot conduct your business, if you cannot 
engage in a social game, if boys even in play can- 
not proceed without acknowledging some standard of 
equity, who is he in this congregation who can imagine 
that the Supreme Being, the God and Ruler of all, 
the Source of all law, the very Spirit of order, can 
carry on his vast and intricate administration without 
constant reference to a standard of judgment touching 
what he sees and hears going on in his presence ? Can 
a father be a father, and not be a judge as well ? Does 
not the parental office and relation imperatively de- 
mand the possession, and, when occasion occurs, the 
exercise, of the judicial element ? Can a king be a 
king with no power to decide, with no faculty to dis- 
criminate ? Could God be God, and not be a judge ? 
Must not "justice and judgment " eternally be "the 
habitation of his throne " ? 

But we have not as yet reached the end to this line 
of thought. Push the analysis farther, cut in closer 
to the heart of the subject, and you find richer juices 
still. I am showing, bear in mind, how truly natural 
is the judicial sentiment to man ; how thoroughly 
wonted he is to it by daily exercise ; that it is not a 
novel but a familiar attjibute of intelligence ; that 
it exists not alone in God, not alone in the Bible, not 
alone in the orthodox scheme of salvation, but also 
in man as man, as a human being, as a moral agent ; 
and that it not only exists in him, but exists in the 
state and condition of constant exercise. 



184 THE JUDICIAL ELEMENT 

I liavejcalled your attention, in proof of this, to your 
statutory and written laws, which could have had no 
other parentage or cause than this judicial sense in 
man. But this is not all. Lift your eyes from the 
written page, and look abroad. Come forth from the 
court of justice, which, in all its forms and actors, is 
but an embodiment of that sense of law and judgment 
which God has implanted in every human breast, and 
behold a jet more powerful manifestation of this sen- 
timent. Here you stand face to face with the great 
unwritten law of society, — a law which both adver- 
tises and enforces itself, — public opinion. This law 
has never been codified ; it has never been printed in 
type ; never been filed for safe keeping in the ar- 
chives of the state or nation : nevertheless, it is rec- 
ognized and felt as a judicial force in society. It is 
the unwritten, common law of humanit}^, perpetuated 
by tradition, by memory, by the moral sense of each 
generation. It holds no court ; and yet its sitting is 
constant. Its court-room is the parlor, the office, the 
car, the street, the public assembly, and wherever men 
or women meet to discuss and converse. It has no 
official existence ; and yet it is stronger than all your 
judges, stronger than your police, stronger than your 
legislature. It employs no officers ; and yet, once on a 
man's track, it folloAvs him through all the labyrinth of 
his wanderings, hunting him down with a persistency 
and vigilance baffled or appeased only with the loss 
of his identity. It builds no prisons, and has need of 
none ; for it is able to make the whole world a jail, and 
every member of the community a detective to restrain 



IN HUMAN NATURE AND PRACTICE. 185 

and watch the suspected person. The sentences that 
your courts pronounce upon criminals vary in dura- 
tion of time ; but the condemnation that public opinion 
puts upon a man is for Kfe. Whenever and wher- 
ever his face is seen, men point it out invidiously ; 
whenever his name is mentioned, it is mentioned with 
execration, or in a whisper, as a sound unfit "for utter- 
ance. The best that friendship can do is to strive to 
forget his aberration ; and Love herself can do no 
more than to cover the face of the erring with her 
mantle, and bear the pain of recallection in silence. 

This, friends, briefly and imperfectly described, is 
what society calls pubhc opinion ; but which in fact, 
when analyzed, is seen to be nothing save the un- 
written, common law of the soul ; the daily, unnoted 
exercise of the judicial element in human nature, 
which makes every man, without any election of his 
own, a judge. 

My friends, this is right. None of you object to 
this. Society must discriminate between the evil and 
the good ; the line of moral rectitude must be kept 
white ; even among thieves, honesty must exist ; a 
kind of judicial standard must be acknowledged. 
When moral discrimination shall no longer be made, 
moral security will no longer exist. What nation 
can endure without courts or any provision for arbi- 
tration ? How can honest trade and legitimate com- 
merce thrive without that protection found alone in 
judicial application ? How could any virtuous society 
continue when virtue has no indorsement, and vice 
no condemnation ? Let it be known amonoj the 



186 THE JUDICIAL ELEMENT 

thieves of this city that no penalty awaits their thiev- 
ing; tell that most despicable embodiment of all 
knavery, the forger, that he can forge drafts with im- 
.punity ; -tell the miser that usury is legitimate, and 
that he can fill his Heaven-condemned coffers by traf- 
fic in the necessities and misfortunes of his neighbors ; 
say to the covetous man, " Reach out your hand and 
take what you will of your neighbors, no harm shall 
come to you ; " say to the tyrant, " Withhold not your 
heel from the bruised and bleeding neck of the down- 
trodden ; " say to the slave-master, " Scourge, debauch, 
kill, as many as you please. Justice is dead ; " tell all 
the hard-hearted, the selfish, the cruel, the lustful, tell 
revenge, tell tyranny, tell those slanders upon human- 
ity whose' bodies are full of brutal and devilish in- 
stincts, that no judicial crisis shall ever occur in human 
history ; that there shall never be an hour of reckon- 
ing, never any check and judgment, any penalty, 
to them, for all their doings, be they what they may, — 
and wickedness of every order and degree would re- 
ceive the announcement with yells of infernal delight : 
even hell would be shocked out of its despair, and 
heave itself in a tumult of joy, saying, " We have tri- 
umphed ! we have triumphed ! Man, at last, is ours ; 
and the earth, which we fancied was to be the Lord's, 
is to us for a possession, to have and hold, and fill 
with wickedness forever." Under such an advertise- 
ment, all moral distinctions would be reversed ; and 
patriotism, honesty, purity itself, become criminal ; 
yea, Virtue would die, and Hope, finding no spot on 
which to rest her foot, would return, as the dove to 
the ark, to the bosom of God. 



IN HUMAN NATURE AND PRACTICE. 187 

But send forth, with all the force of a soul inspired 
with the sublime and holy instincts of justice, — send 
forth, I say, another and a different proclamation : say 
to the slave, '' M}^ brother, thou shalt yet be free ; " to 
the oppressed say, " Rise in the majesty of that might 
which insulted manhood knows, and liberty shall be 
yours;" tell tempted and trampled Purity that her 
cause shall yet be heard ; tell the hypocrite that he 
shall one day be unmasked, and the leer and canning 
of his palUd face be revealed ; let the trumpet sound 
forth a warning to all who do wickedness, that an 
hour cometh, yea, is even nigh to them, when they 
must stand before a just tribunal, and be judged for 
the deeds that they have done, — and the message, 
riding the gale like a thunder-gust, will make the 
guilty quake, put a restraint upon the evil, and make 
the righteous glad with an exceeding joy : Virtue will 
come forth from her sepulchre, revived, re-animated, 
no more to know death ; and Hope, her pinions re- 
bathed in heavenly sheen, will again fan our atmos- 
phere, her^wings bringing light, and her voice charm- 
ing away the sadness of the world. 

If, now, any should say, '' If law, if public opinion, 
if the judicial element, are, as you assert, thus poten- 
tially in the world, if the guilty are thus condemned 
and pmiished in this life, what need is there of pun- 
ishment hereafter ? If man's judgment is thus strict, 
searching, and severe, why should a divine judgment 
be superadded ? " 

To this objection in the form of a query many 
satisfactory answers might be made. I suggest — for 
my time is limited — only this one ; viz. : — 



188 THE JUDICIAL ELEMENT 

In this objection a vital distinction is overlooked, — 
tliat society does and can judge onh' the act^ while 
God does and must judge the heart. By its judg- 
ments, society seeks chiefly phj'sical protection : but 
God seeks rather spiritual defence. The one seeks 
the preservation of that order which its peace and 
temporal prosperit}^ demand; the other, to preserve 
the integrity of the universe, and keep inviolate the 
domain of purity. That part of sin offensive to man 
is but a tithe of its offensiveness. You can never 
understand the ugliness of sin until you take into 
account its offensiveness to God. You punish a man 
because he offends some rule or ordinance of the city 
or state ; but God arrests him as a disturber of the 
"universe, a transgressor of that government, under 
which, as a maiden beneath the covering shield of her 
knightly preserver, the innocent and pure of every 
realm and order of being rest. There is a demerit 
in sin which no human law can reach. It is too sub- 
tle, too mighty. The enemy lies in coiled conceal- 
ment, silently exulting at jowl efforts to unmask him. 
It needs the touch of an angelic spear to shock him 
out of his disguise. Men find, that, after they have 
done all they might to judge and destroy evil, more 
remains unfinished than they have performed. They 
have only examined the opening passage of the cav- 
ern : the inner recess, the curved extremity, where 
the monster has his lair, tliey have never visited. 
Hence the}^ feel the necessity of a fuller judgment, 
a more searching investigation, a more sweeping and 
terrible condemnation. A five-dollar fine and six 



IN HUMAN NATUEE AND PRACTICE. 189 

days in prison are not enough of punishment foi 
murder. When the Bible reveals, therefore, a day of 
judgment, it reveals what the human mind of itself 
perceives to be a necessity. The idea of a judgment 
after death is no more biblical than it is classical. 
Every people under heaven who have reached any 
considerable mentaF expansion, who have advanced 
far enough to study at all the problems of moral re- 
sponsibility, of justice and equity, have had their 
theory of a judgment. In Persia, in Hindostan, in 
India, among the Egyptians, in the mythology of the 
Greeks and Romans, in the teachings of the Druids, 
and in the picturesque faith of the poor Saxon-hunted 
Indian, amoi g every race and tribe, the idea of a 
judgment, a day of supreme and final allotment of 
the good and the bad, has been prevalent. The Bible 
assertion of a judgment-day, instead, therefore, of 
doing violence to human feelings, is in exact har- 
mony with them ; it is only the divine and authorita- 
tive announcement of what the universal conscious- 
ness of the race had instinctively conceived must be 
a fact : and every person at all intelligent and candid 
yields the free, unforced assent of his intellect to the 
statement of the Scriptures, that " God shall bring 
every work into judgment, with every secret thing, 
whether it be good, or whether it be evil." 

The doctrine of divine justice, therefore, as an 
element of God's government, and the rule of his 
conduct, is a doctrine not only acceptable to, but de- 
manded by, the conscience of the race. It is the ne- 
cessary supplement to the moral sense in man ; the one 



190 THE JUDICIAL ELEMENT 

doctrine in which, now in this and now in that form, 
all tribes and peoples have believed and accepted. 
Who are these, then, who reject it to-day ? What a 
philosophy must that be which starts out not only 
with a flat denial of revelation, but an ostentatious 
ignoring of what the wisdom of all the ancients 
taught ! Is Jupiter no longer to grasp the bolt? Is 
Zeus to be enervated? Is Justice henceforth to 
stand with an outstretched arm, noticeable because 
her nerveless fingers have lost their hold on the im- 
partial scales ? Is the best thought of this generation 
to be spent to invent some moral accommodation for 
thieves? Has modern philosophy no object of ambi- 
tion save to dethrone God? Far different was it 
with that ancient culture, which, groping in darkness, 
guided onl}^ by the dim light of an uninspired -moral 
sense, nevertheless made its conception of Deity a 
being of power, the refuge of the innocent, the 
terror of the guilty. When Socrates spoke, the fool 
was silenced, and the guilty abashed. When Demos- 
thenes arose, tyrants trembled, and demagogues turned 
pale. When the slave Epictetus opened his lips, 
the words of his mouth derived their marvellous force 
from their harmony with the eternal principles of 
right. To these men Justice was beautiful ; and the 
stroke of her sword, when its edge smote the neck of 
iniquity, stirred them to applause. Shall we of fuller 
knowledge and clearer insight, seeing better than 
these its divine and humane connection, — shall we, I 
say, divorce the judicial element in God's nature and 
government from our theology, and rob our philoso- 



IX HUMAN KATUEE AND PEACTICE. 191 

phy of what alone makes it valuable to man, — the 
power to warn the wicked, and check them in their 
iniquitous courses ? 

And now, friends, let us return to the words of 
the text : "I saw the dead, small and great, stand 
before God ; and the books were opened ; and an- 
other book was opened, which is the book of life ; 
and the dead were judged out of those things which 
were written in the books, according to their works." 

I have never written a sermon in description of 
the judgment-day : I have never felt able to do it. 
I have been little profited by the efforts of others 
to describe it. The subject is so vast, so solemn, so 
awfal, that I cannot grasp it. In a dim sort of way, 
I have imagined it, — the vast multitude filling half 
of heaven ; the throne uplifted in the midst ; the un- 
reserved revelation of life made by each when ques- 
tioned ; the opened books, in which man finds every 
deed and thought of his hands and heart recorded ; 
the word of verdict, from which none appeal ; the 
commotion and separation as some pass to the right, 
others to the left, of the throne ; the onlooking angels 
poising on steady wings like a great white cloud 
above the crowded mass, — all this, in a dim sort 
of way, I repeat, I have imagined ; but to put the 
picture in words I cannot. Something within me 
cries out, " Let the unseen world alone : your utter- 
ance in attempted description would vulgarize its 
august appearances : human language is too flippant 
to fitly express its solemnities : attempt not a kno\yl- 
sdge that you cannot have until the issue and the 



192 THE JUDICIAL ELEMENT 

hour .reveal it." Vain is it, friends, for man to seem 
wiser than he is. Vain is the forced solemnity of 
tone, the studied wildness of gesture, the lashing of 
imagination dignifying its spasms with the name 
of religious exhortation. The solemnities of heaven 
are solemn only to the silent. Reverence is known 
only to the bowed head, the closed lid, and the lip 
moving in speechless prayer and praise. When that 
dark curtain which the ancients dreaded, and which 
conceals so much, shall be rolled up, and you and I, 
friends, see what is within the veil, then we may 
speak, if speak we can, of what to-day God's wisdom 
hides ; until which time, with the signal of silence on 
our lips, let us keep the attitude of reverence. I 
shall attempt no description, therefore, of the judg- 
ment : I leave it where the word of God leaves it, — 
predicted, asserted, but undescribed. One or two 
reflections will suffice. 

1. The judgment will take place. You and I, my 
hearers, will be judged. The time will come when 
we must stand before God ; when all the acts of our 
lives will be passed in review by him. The hour is to 
be when we shall feel the eye of the All-seeing fas- 
tened upon us ; when every hidden thought and secret 
imagination and fickle fancy will be uncovered before 
the gaze of Infinite Purity ; when the plans and pur- 
poses of our lives will be weighed, and our profes- 
sions compared with our performance ; when what we 
omitted to do of right, as truly as what we committed 
of evil, will be recounted and noted by the Judge ; 
when, in short, friends, we shall all be put in the 



IN HUMAN NATURE AND PEACTICE. 193 

balances, and weighed. Who is it in this audience 
to-day who feels able to endure that scrutiny, and 
bear that divine inspection, confident that he will be 
found sufficient in that balance? Who here has 
omitted no dut}^ committed no wrong, transgressed 
no law, been tainted by nature or indulgence with 
no impurity ? If any, let him rise, and say to us, 
" Behold a perfect man ! " The perfect man is not 
here. We have all gone astray ; we are all lacking ; 
we are all guilty before God. Even our own con- 
sciences condemn us ; and, if our imperfect moral 
sense convict us, how shall the justice of God say, 
'' Ye are all blameless " ? It can not, it will not. 
And I only declare what you all know to be true when 
I say, '' We are condemned already." My friends, 
what shall we do ? When Peter was preaching at the 
Pentecost, the multitude was so convinced of the 
justice of God and their guilt, so convicted of their 
sinfulness before the law, that they knew not which 
way to turn. The very ground seemed to be heaving 
beneath their feet ; and they cried out, '' Men and 
brethren, what shall we do ? " .1 make the reply of 
Peter mine, — another or a better I cannot give, for 
it is the onl}^ one that meets your emergency, — 
" Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the 
name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and 
ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." 

2. The value of Christ is never realized save in 
moments of profound conviction. It is only when 
the tempest beats upon us, and the waves threaten 
to ingulf us, that we run to awake him. What 



194 THE JUDICIAL ELEMENT 

renders a philosophy or religion which fails to make 
divine justice a prominent feature of its teaching so 
dangerous to true godliness is, that it necessarily un- 
derrates the need of a Saviour. Whatever does this 
is calculated to deceive men, to make them satisfied 
with what is not satisfactory to God, and discourage 
efforts to convert men. Why need the suif-boat be 
kept constantly manned when there is no cloud in 
the sky, and no wreck in the harbor ? All guilt is 
comparative. We should not know the exceeding 
lightness of feathers were it not for the heaviness 
of lead. Sin is a deflection in morals from the line 
of absolute rectitude. Any thing that tends to wipe 
out that line, to erase it, or shade it down, so that 
the wicked shall not see it, is, to the full measure of 
expression, evil ; any theology, an}^ philosophy, any 
theory of morals, which does not, in all its teachings, 
insist on the presence and exercise of absolute jus- 
tice on the part of God in his judgments of human 
conduct, is but preparing man to ignore caution and 
despise warning, is but making the road along which 
the masses of the future shall rush to moral declen- 
sion both broad and steep. A Godless philosophy is 
the direst curse that can be inflicted upon a city or 
nation. Poor bleeding France, her body mangled 
with a thousand wounds, each wound a mouth, is 
making her dying protest and bearing her dying tes- 
timony to-day against the ignorance of priestly rule 
on the one hand, and an atheistical culture on the 
other. Despising the justice of heaven, they have 
learned to trample upon the justice of the earth. 



IN HUMAN NATUEE AND PEACTICE. 195 

To-day, friends, we are to celebrate in a me- 
morial service the death of Christ when in his own 
person he made atonement to the transgressed law. 
Not alone the love, not alone the mercy, but the jus- 
tice of God also, as something lovely and above price, 
we hold in remembrance as we gather to the table 
of the Lord. I say, the table of the Lord ; for so is 
he known in heaven, and so shall he yet be known 
universally on earth. Where his cross stood, his 
throne shall yet stand ; and on the spot of his mortifi- 
cation he shall rule in glory and power. I think of his 
second coming as the day when every wrong shall 
have its legitimate redress ; when the weak whom 
none now respect shall be defended, and the cause of 
his people everywhere vindicated. No throne of 
wickedness shall stand in the day when his is build- 
ed, no form of iniquity survive the onslaught of 
his energies, no sin endure in the presence of his 
holiness. To these shall he be what the fire is to the 
dried stubble. They shall melt ; they shall consume 
away. 

Come, then, thou blessed of the Father, and inherit 
the kingdoms ! Smite injustice with that hand that 
injustice pierced. Place, with the majesty of motion 
all thine own, the crown of empire on thy once wound- 
ed head. Around thy side, once riven for us, let the 
glory of thy celestial vesture be folded. Tell us from 
what point of the heavens thou wilt come, that we 
may watch for thee with longing eye as those of 
old, who, wise in their day and generation, watched 
for the promised star. O Lord, our Saviour ! we 



196 THE JUDICIAL ELEMENT. 

v/ait for tliee. Our hearts in all their longings in the 
night-time cry out for thee. In the language of that 
favored one, gifted with vision beyond his state, we 
say, " Come quickly : " first wash us in thy blood, 
which cleanseth whiter than fullers' soap, that we 
may be without spot, and blameless, as those shall 
be who welcome thee ; and we will hail thee to thy 
throne, — our hearts being that throne, — yea, and to 
thy just and holy sovereignty over all mankind. 



SABBATH MOBJVIJVO, MAT I4, 1871. 



SERMOK 



SUBJECT.-DEATH A GAIN. 

" To DIE IS GAI>-." — PMl. i. 21. 

PAUL is here speaking from the high standpoint 
of Christian experience. It is not as a natural, 
but as a renewed man, that he speaks. Tlie assertion 
is not the boast of physical courage : no one can make 
it appear so. It is the exclamation of piety ; the 
holy confidence of one who " knows in Avhom he has 
believed," and whose faith in the blessedness of his 
future condition is absolute. 

Nor was he a mere theorist, amusing himself in safe- 
ty and seclusion with poetical speculations. It is easy 
to play with a dreadful event when it is remote. 
Even a child watches with observant delight the 
thunder-gust when it first heaves up its convoluted 
blackness in the west, — a moving contortion of shad- 
ow, a tumultuous silence ; but what child is there that 
does not run screaming into the house when the 
cloud opens, and the hot, withering bolt rives the 
air, and the very heavens seem to recoil and stagger 
back at the awful explosion? And so it is Avi.li man 



198 DEATH A GAIN. 

touching the matter of death. So long as he is well, 
• and physically strong ; so long as life seems secured 
to him for years, and death a far-off and undefined 
event, — he speaks of it calmly, carelessly perhaps, or, 
it may be, with unseemly wit. It is not dijB&cult, in 
such circumstances, to philosophize with calm and 
polished indifference upon death : but when the 
event is no longer remote, but nigh ; when the cloud 
has crept upward all unperceived, so busy has he 
been, and the first he beholds, as he looks up, is the 
ragged edge of blackness over his head, and the 
awful gloom growing about him, and he knows and 
feels that he stands a target, against which an unseen 
and deadly bolt is being directed, which he cannot 
with his best efforts but for a moment or two avoid, — 
then it is that the man's indifference departs ; then 
it is, when he stands with his feet on the very margin 
of the unknown, that he blanches ; then he contem- 
plates with awe or terror the approach of the catas- 
trophe, which never, until then, had to his eyes the 
character of a fact. 

Now, when the apostle wrote the sentence, "For 
to me to die is gain," he felt that he was nigh the 
experience of which he spoke. Death could not ap- 
pear to him as a remote event, bat one that might 
come to him at any hour. He was in prison, and amid 
all the uncertainties of such a position. The execu- 
tioner might enter his cell at any moment. He felt 
that the hour of his martyrdom was drawing nigh. 
He was writing, as it were, his farewell love-letter to 
the church, which, of the many he founded, he seems 



DEATH A GAIN. 199 

to have loved the best. He had led a checkered life, 
and it was drawing to a close. The future, which to 
those about him was as a gate opening into blackness, 
rose directly in front of him. It was under such cir- 
cumstances, that, sitting in his lonely cell, he calmly 
wrote to his dear children in Christ at Philippi, " To 
me to die is gain." It was not a boast ; it was not 
even exultation: it was only a statement, but a 
statement in which all the forces of his faith, all the 
fulness of his hope, all the longing of his soul, were 
centred. It was as the sky when it spreads out in 
calm, motionless, unruffled blue ; no shade of jasper, 
no tinge of azure, in it ; but here and there a deep- 
seated star shines out, and the gazer feels that at any 
moment the blue may break into orange, and the 
curtain be changed to the color of the outstreaming 
glory behind it. 

I wish, friends, to-day, to examine this statement 
in your presence. Let us reflect upon it together. 
Let us see why and how it is that dying is gain to a 
Christian. 

Allow me to say, to start with, that I do not preach 
this sermon in the way of consolation to any. It was 
not suggested by any occurrence of bereavement in 
the parish. It is not a " funeral " sermon. It is not 
seized upon as a happy topic to " impress " any one. 
Nor do I expect it to be a specially " solemn " dis- 
course, in contradistinction to any delivered on other 
themes. It is, as I conceive of it, a discourse of 
doctrine, of instruction, of explanation and analysis, 
not of exhortation. The whitest line that Christ 



200 DEATH A GAIN. 

drew across the black surface of his time was that 
which he drew in his teaching and demonstration 
concerning death. He it was that ''led captivity 
captive ; " and men saw with amazement the king of 
terrors, spoiled of his arms, and fettered, walking in 
the train of his triumph. Previous to Christ, the grave 
was a mystery. Like a damp, subterranean dungeon, 
it dripped with horrors. Men went to the mouth of it, 
peered tremblingly in, saw its darkness, felt its issuing 
chill upon their faces, shook at the awful suggestions 
of its silence, and fled. Of all the miUions that had 
gone down into it, not one had ever returned. It 
was the silent shore of a hidden sea. Ship after ship 
sailed out into the darkness ; but how and whither the 
watchers knew not, for never had an inrolling wave 
brought back even so much as a tell-tale fragment. 
Where did all these millions go ? What fortunes fell 
to them ? Was there another life ? was there another 
and a brighter shore, not songless, beyond the gloomy 
line ? or did they all sail into great abysses, and were 
swallowed up forever ? With such questions men 
were baffled ; and ignorance, as is always the case, 
begat superstitions. Crude and horrible fancies filled 
the world. These passed into literature ; and the 
wildest fantasies became, in time, standards of con- 
ception. Art shared in the delusion. Death Avas 
pictured as a goblin shape brandishing a dreadful 
spear, and the tomb became synonymous with dread. 
It was a chasm too wide for men to j amp. Here and 
there, poetry cast a silken strand across it ; stoicism 
bridged it with indifference ; and the old astrologers 



DEATH A GAIN. 201 

passed over on a pathway of stars : but to the mass 
it was an abyss ; and the generations in a steady 
stream poured over into it as into some Niagara of 
fate, and were lost in ghastly spray. 

But, when Christ came, all this was changed. You 
remember what an incredible saying it was to the 
disciples, that he " should be buried, and on the third 
day rise again." They could not understand it. 
When he shouted to the dead Lazarus to '^ arise and 
come forth," he did more than make a demonstration 
of his miraculous power: he gave a shock to that 
entire system of superstition touching death which 
dominated over the ancient world. The revelation 
in the case of Lazarus was partial ; but a full and 
perfect one remained to be made, even in his own 
person. In the fulness of time, he died ; he descend- 
ed to the grave ; he crept along the crumbling edges 
of mortality ; he explored all the recesses of what had 
been a world-long mystery; he illumined the grave 
with a light that might never fade, banishing forever 
its darkness : then he came forth, and men saw him 
unharmed ! What must have been the feelings of the 
disciples ? I have never marvelled at the scepticism 
of Thomas. As I read the narrative, he always ap- 
pears to me to have been an unimaginative, cool- 
headed, matter-of-fact man. He had seen Jesus nailed 
to the cross ; he had seen his bosom transfixed with a 
spear, — a rough, huge-headed Roman spear ; he had 
heard his death-cry, and watched him as he gave up 
the ghost. He knew that he had died and been buried ; 
and was he to believe those, who, with panting and 



202 DEATH A GAIN. 

excitement, told him that Jesus was actually alive 
again ? It was impossible ; a flat contradiction of the 
law of Nature and all human experience. Was Death, 
that dread power tlie whole world feared; whose 
shadowy sceptre ruled over all kingdoms ; whose light- 
est whisper the mightiest obeyed ; at whose touch 
love shrivelled in the arms of love, and was dropped 
from its embrace with a shriek, — was this awful event 
no more than a mantle which a man assumes and lays 
off at pleasure ? Was a sepulchre of hewn rock, 
with its stone-guarded door, only a bower, in which 
this man might sleep for a night or two, and then 
come forth refreshed ? Well might he say, — and I 
thank God that he did say, — " Except I shall see in 
his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger 
into the print of the nails, and thrust my hands 
into his side, I will not believe.''' But at last he had 
to believe, for the very proof that he so cautiously 
and determinedly insisted on was given him ; and con- 
vinced beyond the possibility of a doubt, overpowered 
at the stupendous manifestation that the world had 
received, he exclaimed, " My Lord and my God I " 

It is to Christ, then, that we are indebted for eman- 
cipation from an intolerable fear. It was necessary 
that he should taste of death, that the bitterness of its 
waters might be sweetened by the touch of his lips. 
As a father wades out into a stream to encourage his 
timid child to cross, so Christ went down into the river 
men had dreaded, but whose waters are full of cleans- 
ing, and whose farther waves beat on a golden shore. 
I regret to say that Christians are slow to improve the 



DEATH A GAIN. 203 

privilege of knowledge and faith. The old heathen 
superstition still endures. To many a professor, even, 
Death is a monster, and not the dark-faced but kind- 
hearted usher that he is, sent out to lead us to our 
Father's palace. I know of little truly Christian 
poetry. Many of our otherwise sweetest hymns are 
harsh with the old heathenish moan. Literature is 
more mythological in its presentation of death than 
scriptural. Art is perverted by the same error. When 
shall we have an artist that will paint us an angel, 
and not a spectre ? We dress our grief as the ancients 
who lived before life and immortahty were brought to 
light dressed theirs. The color of our mourning gives 
the lie to our faith. A saint is lifted to her glory and 
her reward in heaven, and we put on black ! The Shep- 
herd in his deep love stoops, and takes a little feeble 
lamb to his bosom ; and we knot crape to our door, and 
fill the house with lamentation ! How might the birds 
teach us, that sing their httle ones into the air when 
grown beyond the accommodations of the nest ! They 
have instinctive faith in God. They know that his 
heavens are broad and high, and that their darlings will 
not lack room, nor one of them fall to the ground with- 
out his notice : but we shudder when ours fly off, and 
sit and mourn over the deserted cradle ; forgetting 
the sublime statement of Paul, that '' to die is gain.*' 

" How a gain ? " you say. '' Make it appear to me 
that I shall gain in dying. Cause it to stand out be- 
fore my eyes." 

In the first place, then, I remark, that to die is a 
gain, considered physically. 



204 DEATH A gai:n^. 

I would detract nothing, friends, from the glory of 
the body. As the servant of the mind, as the com- 
panion and temple of the soul, in its powers of 
adaptation, in the variety of its senses, as a medium 
through which unnumbered pleasures come to us, it 
is truly admirable. When in health, it is a marvel of 
accommodation. Through it we are able to appro- 
priate whatever is delightful to the eye, harmonious 
to the ear, and agreeable to the taste. It ministers 
to wants beyond its own, lends a charm to compan- 
ionship, and connects us in closest bonds of sympathy 
with the world of Nature. 

Regarded in one light, the Christian can but regret 
that he must depart from the mortal tenement in 
which for years he has lived and labored. Even the 
aged, thinking upon it as a life-long companion, and 
which, though often abused, was ever the object of 
unceasing care and solicitude, contemplate often with 
unfeigned sadness the gradual decline of its powers 
and the prospect of extinction. Then too, as a speci- 
men of divine ingenuity, it is so marvellous, as a 
medium of communication with the material world 
it is so facile, as a help to interpret the feelings be- 
tween soul and soul it is so quick and sensitive, so 
full of mobility, and perfectly adapted to human neces- 
sities, that it is natural and proper to mourn the extinc- 
tion of its powers and the lapse of its energies. It is 
fit that we mourn when beauty fades. I have lain in 
the night-watches on the silent shore when the waves 
slept and the golden sands were unstirred, and seen a 
star sway for a moment uneasily in its orbit, then fall ; 



DEATH A GAIN. 205 

and monrned tliat the heavens had lost so bright a 
beam. I have seen a rose that had blossomed on my 
table, that had made the air of my study sweet, and 
cheered my toil, become loosened in its formation, 
until its leaves fluttered downward in death ; and 
my thoughts fell with them ; and the quick fancies 
that had flowered while they flowered lay amid the • 
dead leaves, dead as they. I have stood above the 
dying deer, monarch of the woods, child of the wind 
and the sunshine, swift as the one, bright as the 
other : I have seen the film gather over the eye pure 
as the sky on which it loved to gaze, and knelt rever- 
ently to press the fringed lid to its lasting rest, and 
pondered, in the deep silence of undisturbed Xature, 
whither its wild hfe had fled, — nevermore Avould it 
crop the flowers upon the meadow-land ; nevermore 
would its trumpet sound from the pine-crested ridge ; 
nevermore would the waters of its native lake cool 
its heated sides, heated in nimble play, — and, ponder- 
ing, relieved my sadness with the thought, that I had 
never consciously taken life of its kind in vain. And 
when I think of that vast multitude of men and 
women that die daily, of all the forms that languish 
on beds of suffering, of all the power and beauty 
passing from the world with the passing of every 
hour, my heart is heavy, and I say, " Oh that man 
might not die I oh that woman might not perish ! oh 
that all the power and loveliness they embody might 
abide and fail not, but increase and multiply both by 
addition and expansion until the earth is filled with 
the glory of the Lord, even his perfected likeness ! " 



206 DEATH A GAIN, 

But, when reason triumphs over sentiment, the 
scales are reversed, and I see how uncalled for is re- 
gret. The body is no longer worthy, no longer 
beautiful : I no longer desire it. As a student, I see 
how it hinders my growth, both by the interruption 
of its necessities and its diversions. I see that it 
■cramps and clogs the intellect through all the grades 
of perceivable influence, — from the slightest, clean 
down to idiocy. It limits man's acquisition of knowl- 
edge, compelling it to be both local and partial ; and 
allows him no security against the total loss of all 
that by years of patient toil he has obtained. In one 
night of fever, or by the shock of some slight acci- 
dent. Reason is hurled from her throne, the casket of 
memory overturned, and the jewels emptied into the 
depths of the sea. It is, moreover, the parent and 
birthplace of disease. In it are born those causes 
and results that make hfe miserable, which burden 
friendship, and task the service of love, filling the day 
with regrets and the night with pain, until life itself 
becomes oppressive, and existence an experience 
incompatible with happiness. But these reflections 
do not fully express the sinister influence of the body 
on us. There is another and a heavier charge in the 
impeachment ; for it is the avenue of temptation to 
the soul. In it inordinate desires lurk ; passions 
dwell in it ; appetites, whose indulgence is ruin, find 
in it a natural and impregnable fortress ; lust and 
unholy cravings nest in it, and bring forth their hor- 
rible offspring daily. A vast family of wants inhabit 
it, to feed which we must often tax ourselves heavily. 



DEATH A GAIN-. 207 

We resist, and suffer for it ; Tve yield, and are de- 
stroyed. In brief, the soul of man seems to me like 
a king compelled to live continually in the camp of 
his enemies. On all sides is danger : if he resists, 
they assault him, they cover him with wounds, they 
beat him down, strip him of his roj'al vestments, and 
disgrace him ; if he 3ields, he loses the identity of 
his integrity, which alone is asserted in antagonism. 
Who, as he has reflected upon these matters, has never 
longed for another and a nobler companion ? Who 
may not with reason and reverence exclaim, " Oh 
for a body no more subject to disease, no more tor- 
mented with pain, no more domhiated by death! — a 
body not cramped and local, but liberal and universal 
in the action of its functions ; moving with the ease 
of light along the lines of varied acquisition, tel- 
escopic in its powers, harmonious in all its elements, 
whose very appetites are refined, whose passions are 
legitimate, and whose desires are holy, — a body 
which shall not hinder, but assist, the intellect ; which 
will not dwarf, but enlarge, the soul, by supplying it 
with more and better methods of manifestations, — a 
body untainted by disease, unsusceptible of pain, in- 
capable of exhaustion, and superior to death "? 

To this aspiration, friends, I reply, To such a body 
shall the dying Christian come. Death, with kindly 
hand, will lead him into the vestibule of this magnifi- 
cent mode of hfe. He shall stand beneath its up- 
heaved arch, whose only ornament is the majesty 
of its magnitude, — none other being needed ; and as 
bis eye traverses its suspended dome, grown hj the 



208 DEATH A GAIN. 

atmosphere of the place into God-likeness, he shall 
say, " This, then, is the temple not built with 
hands. I fill it! '^ In the world beyond the grave, 
the populations are so vast that they are never com- 
puted : their census exists only in God's mind. And 
the language they use is, in its symbols, numberless 
as the objects of their universal inquisition. But in 
all the vast vocabulary of their speech, in all the in- 
finite pantomime of their expression, there is no sym- 
bol nor sign for pain. That sensation, to the believer 
in Christ, ends at death. Indeed, all the children of 
Sin die with their mother. The spiritual body, be- 
gotten and bestowed of God, will be full of the 
powers and characteristics of God. When that physi- 
cal life, which, to some of God's elect on earth, is but 
one prolonged spasm of pain, is happily over, and the 
transparent hands fold themselves, and the lids droop, 
suffering and inconvenience will be ended. We shall 
all be content when we awake in His likeness. 

Come, then, thou beautiful night, that revealest to 
man the star of so bright a hope ! we tire of the heat 
and of the day. If thou obscurest the things of 
earth, — things which had delighted us, and that we 
loved, — thou nevertheless makest the grand dome 
of future life, with all its solemn spaces and starry 
passages, to appear unto our eyes. Let, then, thy 
dark shadoAvs fall upon those chambers where lie the 
suffering and the sick, and those whose cheeks are 
continually wet with tears, that, with thy darkness, 
sleep may come to them, weary of pain, — even that 
sleep which God giveth to his beloved. Come to the 



DEATH A GAIN. 209 

bed of tossing, and couches of distress ; come to those 
that fear thee ; remove thy mask, and let them see 
how calm and gentle is thy face ; come to those that 
long have prayed for thee as men in dungeons pray 
wildly and madly for freedom, and deliver them out 
of bondage ; come as a sweet surprise to those that 
shrink from thee as children from the physician who 
has come to heal them ; come to the elect of God in 
his good time and pleasure, — and we will hail thee 
as the last and kindest ministration of his love, and 
take thy hand as a loyal subject might take the hand 
of a herald who had come forth to lead him to his 
king. 

But, if it is gain for the Christian to die when 
physically considered, much more does it appear to 
be true in relation to the mind. This is the glory of 
man. There is no power like that of tlie intellect. 
Thought, unless it be sadly perverted, is a divine 
exercise of a divine force. He who thinks purely 
feels like God. There is no pleasure like that of 
intelligence. All men in the creative conception, 
and also in point of fact, are students. As soon as he 
is born, the child becomes a linguist. He studies 
and acquires intuitively. The mind searches for 
knowledge as the month of the babe for the mother's 
breast, and is not content until it is filled. Its wants 
grow with its growth, and the supply of its necessi- 
ties is to it the source of its happiness. The body 
is " of the earth, earthy : " of dust is it made, and unto 
dust will it return. The loveliest flower loses in time 
its formation and its tinting, and is resolved back 1:1 U) 



210 DEATH A GAIN. 

its original elements. Its beauty, like its life, is an 
accident. But the mind is not of earth, but of spirit, 
and can never lose its coherence. Existing as an 
essence, it is lifted above the laws of matter, and is 
superior to its fate. I forget the body as I speak. 
The invisible in me addresses the invisible in you. 
Not the eye, but that which brightens the eye, not 
the voice, but that which sounds through the voice, 
not the body, but that which animates it, distinguish- 
ing it from its kindred clay, is what I allude to when 
I speak of mind. The history of the race is but a 
narrative of man's search for knowledge. He has 
probed the earth ; he has pursued the stars ; he has 
tortured the air for food to appease the hunger of his 
mind. He could not and he would not eat unless 
he fed from the viands of the gods. This hunger 
is to eternally endure. We share the craving 
with the angels. Like birds of different degrees 
of growth, but of the same species, we search the air 
for the same food, and are continually crossing each 
other's lines of flight. I fly to-day where they flew 
yesterday, and the pinions of my mind will beat to- 
morrow the air which their vans fan to-day. The 
things that they desire to look into my eyes ache 
to see, and the song in praise of apprehended excel- 
lence they sing will roll in crested waves of melody 
from my lips when my eyes behold it. 

But what a hinderance and impediment this life, in 
its necessities and conditions, is ! How it weighs me 
down as a stone fastened to a bird's wing would 
oppress its flight ! I cannot rise ; I cannot soar into 



DEATH A GAIN. 211 

the clear spaces of the pure reahn above me. I ara 
held back and restrained amid damp and vapor. I 
cannot attain. I can only prove my aspiration, only 
demonstrate the divine instinct in me, by flutterings. 
What a god in knowledge, what an angel in appre- 
hension, what a giant in power, man might become, 
but for the body ! Where is the world he might not 
reach? What star is there in all the heavens he 
might not visit? Along the shining trail of what 
blazing comet might he not fly ? What companion- 
ships would not such a flight bring him I How 
would his soul grow into the angelic mood, and ado- 
ration become the normal expression of his nature, as 
he saw and gazed and acquired ! For, wherever he 
flew, on the marge of whatever world he landed, 
there would he behold God, whom to see is to adore. 
Everywhere, I repeat, in his finest expression, would 
he see Jehovah, even as voyagers in tropical seas find 
Nature in her finest expression in the bloom and fra- 
grance of flowers, land they on whatever isle they 
fnay. 

To all these possibilities — and, besides these, what 
are the possibilities of the earth ? — death will intro- 
duce the Christian. As the opening of the door means 
freedom to the caged bird, so dying means freedom 
to the mind. No more will the body wire it about ; 
no more will it pine and droop, fed by a hand that 
knows not its natural food ; no more Avill the plumage 
of its breast, rent in its fruitless struggles for liberty, 
crimson the floor ; but it shall fly forth with a great 
burst of song, condensing in one note all it feels of 



212 DEATH A GAIN. 

hate for bondage, and of love for its henceforth as- 
sured freedom. It shall fly forth, I" say, the bound- 
less dome of heaven alone marking the limit of its 
flight ; it shall feed on food eaten of all its kind, 
and the plumage of its breast, as it goes forever soar- 
ing upward, reflect the glory of its Maker and its God. 

"To die is gain." It is a universal statement uni- 
versally disbelieved. ■ I have searched the graves of 
twenty grave-yards, and not a marble slab or shaft, 
plainly wrought or chiselled in costly design, bore this 
immortal assertion. I have prayed above a hundred 
coffins, and watched the faces of the mourners anx- 
iously: not one betrayed a knowledge of this sen- 
tence. 1 have carried a bright face to the funeral- 
chamber, and spoken the words of cheerful faith; 
and men have marvelled, revealing their scepticism 
by their surprise. I have found it hard to persuade 
men that death is sunrise : but when I compare the 
conditions of this life with those of the next ; when 
I set the body sensual over against the body spiritual, 
the mind in bondage over against the mind emanci- 
pated; when I have bowed myself over the white 
face, beautiful as it lay in deep, unruffled peace, and 
remembered how passionate and painful was the life ; 
when I have stood beside the dying, heard their mur- 
mured words of wonder, their exclamations of rap- 
ture, and seen a light not of this world fall upon their 
faces as they touched the margin of the great change, 
— I have said to myself, as I turned away, " Yes, 
Death, thou art a gain, and Paul did not lie." 

My friends, I shall speak again upon tliis theme. 



DEATH A GAIN. 213 

Its waves of solemn thought roll in upon me as the 
great billows come rolling landward from the outer 
sea. Roll on and over me, ye waves of holy thought, 
white-crested with hope ; beat in upon my soul as the 
grand wave beats down upon the sounding shore ; and, 
in thy solemn thunders, tell us of God. O Fear ! I hate 
thee : thou art the child of Ignorance, and the curse 
of thy mother's likeness is on thy forehead. Never 
shalt thou sit as a guest at my table, or darken the en- 
trance of my chamber-door when I or mine lie dying. 
There is a bird that mariners call the " frigate- 
bird," of strange habits, and of stranger power. 
Men see him in all climes ; but never yet has human 
eye seen him near the earth. With wings of mighty 
stretch, high borne, he sails along. Men of the far 
north see him at midnight moving on amid auroral 
fires, sailing along with set wings amid those awful 
flames, taking the color of the waves of light which 
swell and heave around him. Men in the tropics see 
him at hottest noon, his plumage all incarnadined by 
the fierce rays that smite innocuous upon him. Amid 
their ardent fervor he bears along, majestic, tireless. 
Never was he known to stoop from his lofty line of 
flight, never to swerve. To many he is a myth ; to 
all a mystery. Where is his perch ? Where does he 
rest ? Where was he brooded ? None know. They 
only know that above cloud, above the reach of tem- 
pest, above the tumult of transverse currents, this 
bird of heaven, so let us call him, oh self-supporting 
vans that disdain to beat the air on which they rest, 
moves grandly on. So shall my hope be. At either 



214 DEATH A GAIK, 

pole of life, above the clouds of sorrow, superior to 
the tempests that beat upon me, on lofty and tireless 
wing, scorning the earth, it shall move along. Never 
shall it stoop, never swerve from its sublime line of 
flight. Men shall see it in the morning of my life ; 
they shall see it in its hot noonday ; and when the 
shadows fall, my sun having set, using your style 
of speech, but, using mine, when the shadows disap- 
pear, my sun having risen, the last they see of me 
shall be this hope of gain in dying, as it sails out on 
steady wing, and disappears amid the everlasting light. 
I feel, friends, that no exhortation of mine will 
lift you to this pedestal of hewn granite on which it 
is given to monumental piety to stand. Only by analy- 
sis, by meditation, by thought that ponders in the 
night-time the majestic utterances of Scripture, and 
by the open lattice, or, better yet, beneath the grand 
dome bows in prayer, and holds communion with the 
possibilities that stand beyond this life, like unfilled 
thrones waiting for occupants, — only in this way, and 
in others suggested by the Spirit to minds fit to re- 
ceive them, will you or any ever rise to the level of 
the emotion which dictated the text. Where is Paul 
to-day ? Where does he stand, who, from his prison 
at Rome, sent out this immortal saying ? Is there 
one of us that doubts that he has verified the state- 
ment, that " to die is gain " ? Not one. We know 
he walks in glory. He moves amid the majestic 
spaces where even Deity is not cramped. After all 
his struggles, he has entered into rest. Yet what has 
he received that is not in reserve for us ? What has 



DEATH A GAIN. 215 

he that has not come to him in the way of gift ? And 
is not his God mine and yours ? Will the eternal 
Father feed with a partial hand ? Will he discrimi- 
nate, and become a respecter of persons, even at his 
own table ? Piety can never receive into its mind 
the awful suspicion. Our Father feeds his children 
alike ; and the garments that they wear are cut from 
a royal fabric, — even his righteousness. They shine 
like suns brought by the action of a sublime move- 
ment into conjunction. Rise, then, my friends, ye 
people of his love, — rise, and climb with me the mighty 
stairway whose steps are changed from granite to 
porphyry, and from porphyry to jasper, as we ascend, 
until our feet, pure as itself, stand on the sea of crystal 
which stretches in seamless purity before the throne. 
And you, ye aged, whose faces are already touched 
with the light of the eternal world, prepare youi'selves 
to enter with gladness through that gate of former 
blackness, but which Christ revealed to be of pearl, 
into that city of infinite spaces and majestic propor- 
tions, whose raaker and builder is God. Say, as you 
draw nigh to it, as you catch the far-off gleam of 
jasper, as you hear the outer ripples of its music, as 
you see breaking on your dying eyes the spectacle 
of the white-robed waiting by the gate to welcome 
you, — saj^ " I have journeyed far ; I have journeyed 
long : but here, in this chamber, on this bed, to-night, 
my exile and my wanderings cease. No more a pil- 
grim, no more a stranger, at last I see, at last I enter 
into, my everlasting home." 



SABBATH MOBJriJ^G, MAY 21, 1871. 



SERMOK 



SUBJECT.-WICKEDNESS OF THE HEART. 

"The heart is deceitfiil above all things, and desperately 
wicked: who can know it?"— Jer. xvii. 9. 

THE heart is spoken of in our text as being the 
seat of the moral affections ; the source of 
moral or immoral character and tendency. The term 
is used in its generic sense, and is nearly if not quite 
synonymous with nature. This, indeed, is the more 
frequent significance given to it in the Scriptures. 
All through the Bible, you find it employed to denote 
the whole nature of man. As a noun of multitude 
covers all the individuals which come within the reach 
of its application, so this term " heart " includes each 
single element or principle in human nature which 
has a moral bias or character. 

When, therefore, it is asserted in Scripture that the 
heart is deceitful and wicked, it is the same as if it 
were affirmed that the nature of man, human nature 
taken as a whole, in all its moral relations and apti- 
tudes, partakes of these evil qualities. The charge is 
not brought against any individual exponent of that 
nature, but against the nature itself. It does not 

216 



WICKEDNESS OP THE HEAET. 217 

assert that human nature in the life of the thief or 
highwayman or murderer is deceitful and wicked; 
but it charges that human nature, wherever found 
and however expressed, in its hereditary and root 
elements and principles, is wicked, and intensely 
wicked at that. 

Now, I do not propose to-day to attempt by direct 
proof to establish this assertion. If any of you in 
this audience do not believe it, my immediate sugges- 
tion to you is, that you look within your own heart, 
and see what sort of condition, morally considered, it 
is in. You need not read books, or go abroad in 
search of facts, to ascertain your wickedness. As the 
eye takes in colors, so the conscience recognizes the 
presence of guilt. You see it in yourself, and by ob- 
servation you discover it in others. A chemist takes 
a drop of water from the ocean, and, by his analysis of 
it, ascertains the composition of the whole mass. So 
man, as one drop in the vast ocean of moral conscious- 
ness, by examination of his own heart learns what is 
the moral condition of all. There is too much of 
studying sin from the outside. There is too much 
preaching which takes up moral obliquity as an in- 
tellectual proposition, which stands or falls on the 
strength of verbal demonstration. Is the evidence 
of sin found alone in the Scriptures ? Why fabricate 
an argument out of proof-texts ? The proof of man's 
guilt is man's acts, and not what any book says about 
him. The book to read is the book of your life, with 
the days you have lived for the leaves, and where 
every leaf is marred by more than one blot. If a 



218 WICKEDNESS OF THE HEART. 

man says that he is not sinful, must I run to Scripture 
to prove it ? No. When a man with the smell of 
whisliey strong in his breath tells me that he does not 
drink, must I run to the State House and turn to the 
statute of prohibition to prove it ? Why, no. He is 
himself the all-sufficient witness against himself. Out 
of him, with the very utterance of the assertion,' came 
the proof of its falsity. So it is with this matter of 
personal moral obliquity, this lack of individual holi- 
ness, this lapsed and fallen condition of human nature. 
Books do not prove it ; verbal demonstrations do not 
prove it : it proves itself. As a turbid stretch of 
water denotes impurity above, so man's words and 
thoughts and acts show that the source, his heart, 
is not morally right. 

Now, in this discourse I do not, as I said, vtdsh to 
enter into any argument to establish the text. It is 
a hard, rough, and thorn-like passage. It rises out of 
the preceding context, very like as some islands rise 
out of the placid surface of our Northern lakes, vex- 
ing the easy-going waters with their projections of 
ragged granite, and offering to the eye of the hunter 
who would beat them for game the harsh opposition 
of thickets. No, we will not push in and tear our 
way through this thorny text : we will only paddle 
around it, as it were, study its rough suggestiveness, 
in search of some safe and profitable application. 

The charge of deceitfulness is brought in our text 
against the human heart. It is a grave charge. To 
deceive any one is to lead him astray ; to cause him 
to doubt what is true, and believe what is false ; to 



WICKEDNESS OF THE HEART. 219 

delude and entrap him to his lasting hurt. Now, this 
is a very sweeping allegation. I will show you how 
grave it is by an illustration. 

To an artist, that is a fearful disturbance in vision 
which transposes colors, causing white to appear black, 
and black white. What correct and remunerative 
picture may he ever paint again ? How shall he ever 
■ again mingle his colors, and from his nicely-prepared 
mixtures make the canvas to glow with the roseate 
hues of morning or the star-lighted splendors of the 
night ? Out of what future possibility shall he fash- 
ion his wreath ? By what apphcation can he win even 
his physical support ? He cannot. That optical de- 
lusion, that deceitfulness of vision, has dashed, in one 
single hour, hope, wealth, and honor to the ground. 
But what is the eye, either in its uses or dignity, beside 
the soul ? What is that disturbance which affects 
the fleshly and the temporal compared with that 
which deludes the spiritual and the eternal ? Let 
blindness fall upon us, and the gates of sight be 
closed forever to the scenes of earth and time : only 
leave with us unhampered faith in God, undiminished 
affection for him, undying hope in the hereafter, and 
we will live and rejoice in that hope until the healing 
finger shall touch our sightless orbs, and on our open- 
ing eyes shall break the glories of the heavenly 
world. 

But if the heart be diseased ; if that invaluable 
element which enables us to decide as to what is 
right and wrong be affected ; if our affections con- 
spire to lead us astray ; above all, if this deceitfulness 



220 WICKEDNESS OF THE HEAET. 

and evil bias affect not only this but our future life, 
— then language is too weak to describe the calamity 
it inflicts on all ; then are we like men exposed to 
an unmeasured and immeasurable evil. 

Now, one of the proofs of the existence of this 
principle in the heart is, that it leads one to put a 
false estimate upon himself. 

It was in this form that sin found its first expres- 
sion in Satan. An unseemly pride possessed him. He 
was ambitious to be equal with God. An inordinate 
desire to match the Infinite stirred him into that wild 
and unprecedented rebellion. Sin is always bold 
with a boldness born of an exaggerated idea of its 
own prowess. Hence its audacity. Hence its swag- 
ger. Hence sinfulness and pride in the Scripture are 
analogous terms ; as in Prov. xvi. 5, " The proud in 
heart are an abomination to the Lord." What sin 
most hates is true humility, — the reverent confession 
of weakness before God. Its whole aim is to push 
men to the other extreme ; to blind their eyes to their 
own emptiness, and make them feel that they need 
nothing. Now, you may go up and down and around 
the whole earth, and you cannot find a wicked man 
who is a humble man. Sin has a certain complacency 
peculiar to itself. It contemplates with a sense of 
unctuous satisfaction its well-filled granaries, its stocks 
and bonds, and, smoothing the velvet of its raiment, 
exclaims, " Soul, take thy ease ! " Yea, more ; you 
may canvass all the cities of the world, and all grades 
of vice, and you will find that sin has a style of con- 
tentment in it. Men and women are by it drugged 



WICKEDNESS OF THE HEART. 221 

into a kind of insensibility touching the future. They 
have no projection to their thoughts. The grave is 
to them a movable point, ever receding as they ad- 
vance ; and at fifty they are no nearer to it than at 
thirty. Death is made, by the deceitfulness of sin, to 
appear as a far-off and remote event ; and never until 
the shadoAVs of the valley which at last envelop all 
are actually settling around them do they realize that 
they, too, must die. 

My hearer, is this to any extent true of you ? Does 
the grave appear to you as too far off to require im- 
mediate attention ? Are you counting as sure that 
which is most uncertain, — life ? Are you delaying 
what should first of all be attended to ? If so, I 
submit that you are not wise. This word of caution is 
for you. It is God's warning to your soul. Give it 
due heed, lest you do worse. 

Now, the text charges that the heart is not only 
deceitful, but desperately wicked. This is the cul- 
mination of the charge. Let us look at it a mo- 
ment. 

In old Saxon, " wicked " signified " bewitched, pos- 
sessed with the very spuit of evil." It is one of those 
words which carry us back to the days of our fore- 
fathers, when superstitions abounded, and the belief 
prevailed that the powers of evil, and Satan himself, 
entered into men and women, and possessed them. 
And I am not sure that they were far out of the way. 
I have been at times rather superstitious myself in 
view of exhibitions I have seen somo people make of 
themselves ! Now, this idea that a wicked man is a 



222 WICKEDNESS OF THE HEAET. 

bewitched man, a man of whose heart Satan has taken 
possession, whose tongue he directs, whose bitterness 
he prompts, assists the mind in its conception of the 
origin and nature of evil. It puts one on the right 
track, and, by a short, sharp race, runs the game to 
earth. 

In modern language, " wicked " means " contrary 
to the moral law." A man who steals or swears or 
covets is a wicked man. A man who is addicted to 
vice of any sort ; whose heart is alienated from recti- 
tude and God ; whose idea of duty is born, not of the 
quick sense of right, but of what is politic and ex- 
pedient, — such a man is wicked : and if he is far 
gone in these directions, if his moral obhquity has 
become a habit, then is he a desperately wicked man ; 
that is, wicked beyond hope, and to the very verge of 
despair. 

This charge is susceptible of proof. The history 
of the world proves it. What is that history ? You 
all know. You are intelligent ; you are well-read ; 
and 3^ou know that the past has been a past of blood. 
From the time of Cain, brother has smitten brother, and 
sin and death dominated over mankind. There have 
been centuries whose histor}^ might be expressed by 
a groan. The life of many generations might be 
represented with a shackle for its symbol. The shriek ■ 
of pain, the murmur of the oppressed, the cry of baf- 
fled vengeance, and the unanswered prayer, epitomize 
volumes of labored narrative. The race has marched 
to its enlarged liberty and its higher life as men 
march across a battle-field, the blaze of batteries in 



WICKEDNESS OP THE HEART. 223 

their face, and the turf beneath their feet moist with 
precious blood. 

There is an effort being made in this country to 
confuse and bewilder the public mind on some of the 
rudimental, underlying questions of men's spiritual 
condition. The languages of the world are ransacked 
in order to find some word, some phrase, some defi- 
nition, to soften, tone down, and emasculate the 
scriptural idea of sin. They hate the term. And 
well such teachers may ; for if there is such a thing as 
sin in the Bible sense, a positive, voluntary transgres- 
sion against right principle and salutary law, then all 
their splendid superstructure of philosophy falls to 
the ground. This they know and feel. Hence their 
efforts, hence their anxiety, to explain away and 
weaken men's convictions on just this point. They 
call it a " disease," a " misadjustment of the facul- 
ties," an " unfortunate but irresponsible tendency." 
Any term, any phrase, is welcome, so that it banish 
from their vocabulary of utterance the terrible word, 
which, if spoken, has a concussive power in it sufficient 
to demolish all their elaborate structure of deceit. 
But, friends, there stands the word ; there is the ugly 
fact; the ghostly visitation which mars their feast 
with its unbidden, unwished-for entrance. What an 
uphill work it must be for a man to argue before an 
audience that there is no such thing as sin, when every 
man and woman before the speaker knows and feels 
that he has sinned, not once, nor twice, but many 
times ! How can I tell you that you have never sinned, 
when your own consciences upbraid you ? How can I 



224 WICKEDNESS OF THE HEART. 

tell you that you are spotless, when nought but the 
covering of your secrecy prevents your moral discol- 
oration from standing out palpably to sight ? Can 1 
forget that you have memories ? Can I go down, and, 
standing over against your jails, declare that there is 
no transgression of law, no voluntary and premeditated 
crime ? Why, that philosophy is inconsistent with 
your civil structure. It flies in the face of every 
legal enactment on your statute-book. It makes your 
judges and your officers at court but so many masked 
players in a play, who act with feigned gravity the 
parts these theological comedians have allotted them. 
What a huge farce it is to uy a man because he is 
afflicted with disease I what broad fun in the asser- 
tion, that we shut a man up in Boston, in a prison- 
cell, if he has " misadjusted faculties " ! what grim 
humor in the statement, that a man was swung off 
from the gallows and choked to death because he was 
afflicted with an " hereditary tendency " I Did Theo- 
dore Parker hold that the slave-trade was carried on 
by innocent imbeciles, by people suffering under a 
disease which deprived them of all blameworthiness 
in the matter ? No : he called them '' monsters of 
wickedness," '*• intelligent men-stealers," " criminals 
before God and man." He smote them with words 
hot as fire, with invective which burnt its way into 
whatever it touched, invective which was wicked and 
cruel in itself unless it was deserved. He was ortho- 
dox enough when he talked about slavery. When he 
heard the bay of the blood-hound ; saw the panting 
slave-woman, with her babe in her arms, dragged 



WICKEDNESS OF THE HEART. 225 

down by the savage brute ; when he heard the thud 
of the lash, knotted with junks of lead, on her bare, 
palpitating back, and looked into the face of the 
master standing by, smoking his cigar, quietly enjoy- 
ing the spectacle of torture, — the screams, the groans, 
the blood, of the woman, — he forgot his theology, 
liis poetic theories ; and, with flaming cheek and flash- 
ing eye, he held him up before the intelligence and 
virtue of the old Bay State as the " embodiment of 
devilishness, and an outrage upon humanity." 

My friends, this was the conviction of the man, 
when, with unprejudiced eyes, he saw the action of 
wicked men and their character. He knew, and we 
all know, that men are not so diseased that they 
are not responsible for their acts. There is no such 
misadjustment of our faculties as to render us unac- 
countable. We are not imbecile ; we are not lunatic. 
Our wills are not weakened to idiocy ; our minds are 
not so blinded as not to see. We are all capable. We 
have a will to decide, a reason to consider, a moral 
sense to instruct. We are creatures of premeditation: 
and device. We think and plan, we accept and reject. 
Every mark of abihty is seen in our conduct. And 
beyond all else is our consciousness, which testifies 
both to our power and our guilt. More than once in 
our lives have we done wrong, ■■ — done it in spite of 
knowledge and the outspoken rebukes of our con- 
science. We did the act, knowing, feeling, that it 
was wrong ; and the knowledge and feeling remain to 
this day. 

You see the importance of this position ; for, if 

10* 



226 WICKEDNESS OF THE HEART. 

true, it changes entirely our position before God from 
what it is if it is not true. If we have voluntarily 
transgressed the laws of right, if we have knowing- 
ly acted against God's wish and will, then is the wick- 
edness of the heart neither accidental in its character, 
nor slight in degree. Its depravity is seen to be na- 
tive, and its guilt positive and intense ; and our con- 
sciences, when they condemn us, only anticipate the 
decision of God. 

My friends, this is precisely the fact of the case. 
Our consciences do only anticipate God's judgment ; 
and the Bible, as vindicated by our own conscious- 
ness, is true when it saj^s, " We are all under the law. 
We have all gone astray. There is none ^hat doeth 
good ; no, not one." 

But, friends, if you would know and tremble at the 
wickedness of the heart, look within. No measuring 
of the surface can sound the ocean. Down, straight 
down, into the unlighted depths, must the plummet 
go. Fathom after fathom must it descend or ever it 
can touch the bottom of the deep, and gauge the 
distance downward. So is it with the human heart : 
each man must cast the lead of investigation for him- 
self, and note the depth of his depravity. A man 
who stands on the bank along the verge of rapids 
can never realize the swiftness of the current : he 
must shove off into it, feel the dip of the boat down- 
ward, feel the pressure of the air on either cheek as 
his face cleaves through it, hear the hiss and rasp of 
the waters under him, seize the oars and measure 
his strength against it, and by his best efforts barely 



WICKEDKESS OF THE HEAET. 227 

hold his own, perhaps not even that, before he can 
ever conceive, much less estimate, the rush and sweep 
and power of rapids. So it is with our estimate of 
sin. The man who merely sees it as exliibited in 
others, the man who reads of it in his morning pa- 
per, who studies it as manifested in society at large, 
knows nothing of it. K he would know of its vio- 
lence, of its cruel persistence, of its down-sweeping 
and destructive vehemence, let him look, not at others, 
but at himself; let him recall his own experiences 
and struggles. 

Every hfe has its crisis, every soul its Gethsemane, 
when friends slisep, and powers of darkness assail and 
circle it with horror. Take your life, fiiend, and single 
out some such hour ; an hour in which virtue and 
honor, peace of conscience, and faith in God, stood 
trembhng in the balance ; an hour when unexpect- 
edly, and by no fault of yours, the power of evil am- 
bushed your path, and set upon you on all sides at 
once, taking you by surprise ; an hour in which all 
dear to you, all which might make life honorable 
or death peaceful, all that might crimson the portal 
of the grave, and in the azure above it reveal the an- 
chor and the dove, reeled and staggered even unto 
faUing. Praise the mercy of God to-day if in that 
hour of wind and rain the downbeating and onrush- 
ing violence of it swej)t not your house from its 
foundations. 

But in the remembered trials of that hour, in the 
struggle and agony of it, in the resistance it elicited, 
in the bravery it demanded, in the pressui'e it put 
upon your virtue, behold the power of sin ! 



228 WICKEDNESS OF THE HEART. 

Or, again, leave a heart to its own natural tenden- 
cies ; let its natural proneness to sin go on unhindered 
unto its own supremely evil consummation ; let no 
restraints of virtuous education be put upon it ; let it 
be unhampered by the fear of public opinion ; remove 
the obstructions which legal enactments heave up in 
its murderous course ; take home and the schoolhouse, 
the voice of prayer and the entreaty of friendship, the 
admonition of wisdom, the pleadings of love, and the 
restraining sight of virtue, out of the world, — and 
into what anarchy, what violence, what barbarism, 
what licentiousness, what tiger-like ferocity, would 
not the world plunge ! 

Go down into North Street, go to your House of 
Correction, go to the cellars and garrets and broth- 
els and dens of your city, and study the faces of 
those of either sex who burrow under the very roots 
of your metropolis ; notice their faces, bloated with 
drink, or hollow with want ; mark their bodies, out 
of which the divine spirit of cleanliness and decency 
has departed ; look into their eyes, in the lure and 
craving and cunning and effrontery of which every 
lurking devil of lust and appetite and laAvlessness 
abides ; take up that infant, with its sharp, pinched 
face and fleshless limbs, fitter for the coffin than the 
cradle, — go, I say, and standing on the marge of this 
moral cesspool, with your feet in the muck and 
mire of its rottenness, look over into this sty of 
human animalism, which churches that ransack the 
globe for a spot to send a missionary tolerate under 
their very nose, and see in all this foul and purulent 



WICKEDNESS OF THE HEART. 229 

mass of crime and corruption into what a depth of 
depravity the human heart, left to the law of its own 
natural tendencies, will plunge and sink and stay. 

Well, is it owing to any redeeming quality in sin 
that this entire city is not like North Street ? Take 
the world, and note the causes which have made one- 
haK of it moral and civilized and humane. Observe 
what an infinite purchase-capacity God has been com- 
pelled to develop in order to heave human nature up 
even to that level of virtue on which society can exist, 
and estimate into what darkness and brutality the 
world would speedily lapse were the checks and re- 
straints of knowledge and law and the Bible with- 
drawn. 

Rejoice, Christians and non-professors alike, that no 
such thing can occur. The future may bring many 
a misfortune to man ; but it can never bring such a 
calamity as that. Between the human heart and its 
natural tendency to wrong-doing a mightier than 
human power has taken its stand. Between the 
cradle and the grave are the merciful visitations of 
God ; and there will they be forever. Along that road 
which is broad, which leadeth to destruction, and into 
which many shall enter, the angels of God, and those 
servants of his like unto angels, lacking not voice of 
entreaty, lacking not gesture of warning, shall stand, 
turning many from death unto life, snatching many 
as brands from the burning ; and the souls of those 
who are saved will be jewels in the crowns of their 
rejoicing forever. 

My friends, the phrase " desperately wicked " is one 



230 WICKEDNESS OF THE HEART. 

of those descriptive phrases, one of those scraps of 
suggestive word-painting, most difficult for the mind 
to comprehend. 

The mind goes up to it as a man goes cautiously 
up to an old shaft deep and dark, and to the eye 
bottomless. He stretches himself at full length along 
the edge, and peers shrinkingly over into it, but 
starts shudderingly back as a rush of cold, damp, 
impure air beats up into his face. He selects a stone, 
and casts it in. It bounds from side to side, publish- 
ing its progress downward by ever-decreasing echoes ; 
and, when the last faint sound has reached the ear, it 
leaves upon the brain the impression that it is still 
, descending, — whither, or how far, the listener can 
make no estimate. 

Well, something like to that is the chasm in moral 
descent which this phrase opens. This pit of " des- 
perate wickedness " — who can sound it ? Call it hell, 
and drop your thought down into it, and many sug- 
gestions of horror like muffled echoes rise at first; 
but soon you reach a point where these fail, and no 
sound is upsent from its stupendous depth, and no 
thought comes like a swiftly-flying messenger to tell 
where lies the bottom of that dark passage and ever- 
darkening depth to which the wicked sink, or rather, 
I should say, into which the wicked are ever sinking. 
For sin is one interminable declension, an unchecked 
and everlasting descent. It has no fixed state or 
condition. It is motion downward ; motion ever ac- 
celerated ; motion never arrested. Hence the pit 
which is its home is bottomless. Hence the wicked 



WICKEDNESS OF THE HEART. 231 

are ever growing more wicked, and the devilish more 
and more depraved. 

You have seen the operations of this law ; your 
eyes have seen the development of this gravitating 
principle in depravity going on day by day in people ; 
ay, and at times felt it in your own bosoms. 

Have not all of you who are present had periods 
of declension ? Can you not recall one and another 
season in your lives in which the inclination of your 
thoughts and acts was downward ? — a season in 
which you grew less honest, less circumspect, less' 
pure, less careful ? You feel to-day that you are a 
better man or woman than you were then. You 
were not lost ; you did not make a castaway of your- 
self : but you know now that you came near doing 
it ; that, but for some intervening restraint and 
mercy, yon would have gone on and on until you 
would have taken one step too far, and been lost. 
You waded far out enough to feel the pressure of 
.that terrible current down which the wealth and 
honor and bodies of many men are being hurled to- 
day. 

In view of that wickedness of which the heart of 
man is capable, in view of its hidden as well as its ex- 
pressed transgressions, in view of its inward taint and 
tumors, its veiled leprosies and manifold deceits, well 
might the prophet exclaim, " Who can know it ? " 
Who shall ever thread the labyrinth of sinful motives . 
through which the babe passed from the cradle to 
the gallows ? Who shall explore the dark caverns 
and recesses of human thought, and tell to the upper 



232 WICKEDNESS OF THE HEAET. 

world what monsters obnoxious to the sight, and hor- 
rible, are born and nourished there ? Who shall force 
the entrance to those subterranean passages of man's 
sinful nature, and drag to light the evil ministers 
that wait on murder and blow hot the torch of con- 
flagration ? Who shall prove himself that chemist of 
character able to gather the sediment of our disposi- 
tions, and, by analysis, trace each impure combina- 
tion, each low desire, each group of carnal craving, 
to their source, detect their basal elements, write out 
their law of growth, and catalogue them properly 
in the order of evil ? If knowledge sufficient were 
unto any, who might endure the wrack and torture 
of the effort? No one. The human heart is a 
mystery ; it is secret with the secrecy of shame and 
the caution of undetected guilt ; and the judgment- 
day will be a day to astonish the universe because of 
the revelations it will make. The vindication of a 
penalty which now appalls some men will be seen at 
the unmasking and exhibition of a depravity more 
appalling yet. 

Who then " shall deliver me from the body of 
this death ? " I thank God, that, through Jesus 
Christ, I and all may be delivered. Through him 
man can obtain not alone remission of the penalty, 
but what to every noble nature seems far better, — 
deliverance from the taint and dominion of sin. I 
ask you who have never felt the quickening of the 
Spirit, who have never received into your hearts 
any divine impulse, to look at your natures thought- 
fully a moment. Observe how full of vain and 



WICKEDNESS OF THE HEART. 233 

wicked imaginations are your minds ; how essentially 
selfish are your plans ; how sordid, compared with 
the feehngs of the heavenly-minded, are your desires. 
When you have thus soberly analyzed your own 
natures, look abroad over the world ; behold its 
iniquities, its lewdness, its cruelties, its oppressions, 
its wars and bloodshed, the vulture-like aptitudes 
which go out in search of pure things as hawks leave 
their dark perches and sail forth hunting for doves, — 
and then tell me if man is not " desperately wicked ; " 
tell me if any theory, any philosophy, must not be 
false that does not start out with a full and clear 
recognition that man is depraved. 

There is a strong current setting against this gene- 
ration, the tendency of which is to wash men and 
women out into a sea of loose opinions and looser 
practices. The old anchorages where our fathers 
outrode so many storms in safety are being deserted, 
albeit they lie within, and are enclosed round about 
by the headlands of God's truth. Few would call me, 
I presume, a conservative ; and yet I have not to-day, 
and never have had, any sympathy with a radicalism 
that smites both gods and mummies alike. And I 
call upon each of you in your respective spheres, and 
according to the measure of your ability, to resist 
every tendency calculated to add to our present reck- 
lessness and impatience at wise and salutary restraint. 
I see that the old traditions are losing their hold on 
the public mind ; that the old customs are passing 
away ; that the old conservative habits of thought 
are dying out. I do not lament it. God allows 



234 WICKEDNESS OF THE HEAET. 

nothing to perish until it has answered its use. I 
onlj^ pi'ay that they may be as the corn when it is 
cast into the earth, whose vital principle finds a fresher 
and nobler expression in dying, and discovers that 
death means nothing worse than a multiplication of 
its own life. The shuck is cast off; but it is cast off 
because the expanded and expanding germ within 
can no longer tolerate the bondage of its pressure. 
The future will be fuller in its girth, and nobler of 
stature, than the past. It will have strength and 
wisdom to do what the past could not do. It will be 
wise with that wisdom which comes alone from a 
knowledge of the failures and imperfections of the 
dead. I care not for forms ; each generation has its 
own : I desire only that the truth which they express 
be cherished. The mode of expression and applica- 
tion will be changed from time to time ; but let the 
doctrine itself, in all its integrity, abide. 



SABBATH MORMIJfG, MAY 28, 1871. 



SERMOK 



SUBJECT.-RESISTANCE OF EVIL. 
"Submit youeselves, theeefoee, to God. Eesist the Devil, and 

HE WILL FLEE FEOM YOU." — James iv. 7. 

"TVTOTHING is more plainly taught in the Scrip- 
_1_\| tares than that men are exposed to satanic 
influence. Indeed, the sacred writers as plainly an- 
nounce the doctrine of a diabolical as a divine agency 
in the world. The very identical terms employed to 
teach the one are employed to teach the other. If 
they speak of God as opening the eyes of the under- 
standing, Satan is said to " blind the mind, that it 
believe not." If God " worketh in Christians to 
will and to do," Satan is the " spirit that worketh in 
the children of disobedience." If the sanctified are 
said to be " filled with the Holy Ghost," " why," said 
Peter to Ananias, " hath Satan filled thy heart ? " 

Such is the testimony of Scripture. It is plain 
and unequivocal. I know that there are people who 
deny the personal existence of Satan ; but you have 
observed, doubtless, that this class seldom believe in 
the personality of God. According to tliis class of 
writers and thinkers, God is that principle of order 



236 EESISTANCE OF EVIL. 

which is ever working itself out in all manner of 
lovely sights and sweet sounds ; and thus they poet- 
ize God into a supreme and volatile essence, until, to 
their mind, he has neither throne nor residence, nor 
aught of the coherence essential to the exercise of 
wisdom and power. And this, as you all see, strikes 
at the very existence of divine government ; for 
with the very conception of a government is associat- 
ed the accompanying conception of a person or per- 
sons. Government means rule, authority, law, exe- 
cution. But such ideas can exist only as you associ- 
ate them with persons. Where there is neither ruler 
nor ruled, there is no government ; and, if one de- 
nies the personality of God, he denies also the exist- 
ence of any moral go\ ernment. And out of this de- 
nial is born, naturally as children are born of parents, 
license of thought and act, and the utmost security 
of indulgence. When there is no judge, no sheriff, 
no agents, to enforce law, then has law ceased, and 
you have simply civil chaos. 

On the other hand, this same class, logically enough 
from the premise of their assumption, hold that Sa- 
tan is merely an inharmonious principle, an unhappy 
and discordant element, at war with the element of 
order ; and that these two impersonal forces maintain 
their essential contest without individuality of pur- 
pose or feeling. There is to them no more personali- 
ty, no more intelligence, no more moral antagonism, 
than between two currents, which, by the accident of 
locality, are brought in contact, and fret unconscious- 
ly against each other. 



EESISTANCE OF EVIL. 237 

In tliis atheistical philosophy, — for you see that it 
is, to all intents and purposes, atheism, in that it prac- 
tically denies that there is a God in any such sense as 
the Bible teaches, — in this atheistical philosophy, I 
say, many share ; and some, I fear, are practically in 
harmony with this belief who have never defined their 
feelings, or confessed them even unto themselves. 
The burden of their talk is, that society is full of 
evil influences ; that men are overcome by tempta- 
tion, as swimmers in an evil hour are overcome by 
drifts and currents which seize them unawares and 
sweep them away ; that men are unfortunately ex- 
posed to temptations, and overcome. And all this, in 
one sense, is true. There are currents of impulse, 
and whirlwinds of passionate forces, and temptations 
numberless, to which we all are exposed. We have 
all felt these as the forest feels the wind. We have 
been blown against and buffeted, not once, but many 
times, and, it may be, prostrated by them. But 
these phrases do not state the whole truth ; they do 
not reveal the full analysis. Back of these tenden- 
cies is and must be one who directs them. The moral 
realm is not a mere atmosphere. The movements in 
it are not like the movements of inanimate air-cur- 
rents. Men are not like trees. Back of all agencies, 
evil or good, is and must be an Agent. For every 
effect there must be a cause. Over a world of intel- 
ligence there must be an intelligent Head, as there is 
an Author. Law, universal and harmonious, is not the 
result of chance. It is not by accident that the stars 
keep their orbits, and sweep around their golden cir- 



288 EESISTANCB OF EYIL. 

cles with invariable precision. There is a hand that 
guides them around their eternally-appointed course. 
There is a central glory, by reflecting which they 
shine. The Bible theory is the only theory that can 
explain the manifest phenomena in the material and 
moral world. There is a God, personal in his attri- 
butes, and intelligent ; the source of authority ; the 
embodiment of wisdom, love, and power. There is, 
on the other hand, a being called Satan, equally indi- 
vidual ; a creature of vast cunning and power and 
wickedness ; the active, persistent adversaiy of God, 
and of those of us who desire in our hearts to be like 
God. There is such a being, therefore, as Satan; 
and, when men are commanded " to resist evil," it is 
not mere influences that they are enjoined to with- 
stand, but the person, the evil mind and wicked 
heart, that directs them. Hell has its king ; and all 
its black legions obey the voice that first hurled defi- 
ance at God. He lives and moves as the directing 
cause and mainspring of all the wickedness done 
under the sun. Murder, with its red hand and all its 
fingers dripping blood ; Conflagration with her blazing 
torch ; Rebellion that devastates ; and all the lesser 
agents of evil, — these are his children. To deny 
this is to deny the Scripture ; for this doctrine is 
as a central thread in its strongly-woven woof. It can 
be withdrawn only in the disruption of the entire 
piece. 

This is the being, then, whom we are commanded 
to resist. And, among other reasons for so doing, I 
will mention, first, this, — our ability to do it. We 
can resist evil. 



EESISTANCE OF EVIL. 239 

No one is compelled to sin. If sin is involuntary, 
then none would be responsible for it ; for the sole 
guilt of sin lies in this, — the ability of the sinner to 
restrain himself. Hell is a voluntary association. 
If a man places the point of a dagger over my heart, 
and, seizing my hand with a power I cannot resist, 
presses it suddenly against the hilt, and drives it 
home, am I a suicide ? Certainly not ; because my 
will did not consent to the act. I was forced, com- 
pelled. The power to resist is not mine. But, ob- 
serve, if I seize the knife myself, I care not under 
the pressure of what temptation, and, feehng for a 
place to get it in, enter it between the ribs, and crowd 
hard on it until the thin blade is buried to the hilt 
in the quivering flesh, am I not a murderer ? Am I 
not guilty before God of taking my own life ? And 
will not the unholy deed condemn me at the judg- 
ment ? A man, you see, must be able to refuse in 
order to make his consent criminal. 

Now, this is true in fact as well as' theory. Expe- 
rience is on the side of our argument. Look at it a 
moment. 

My hearer, take some slip in your life, and examine 
it : I mean any of you. Pick out some particular day 
or hour in your life wherein you did wrong. Fasten 
your memory on some act or thought you now regret. 
Do you not remember how unpleasantly you felt 
before you did it, while doing it, — unless it were a sin 
of passion, and frenzied you, — and after it was done ? 
Can you not recall, and feel over again almost, the 
revulsion which came over you after the transaction, 



240 EESISTANCB OF EVIL. 

and conscience spoke up ? Perhaps you halted, re- 
fused, debated, strove to shake yourself loose from 
the temptation, but at last, under the spell of its ter- 
rible fascination, yielded. For hours, perhaps for days, 
the scales swung in even poise ; but finally Satan pre- 
vailed, and you did what you regret unto this day. 
How stoutly virtue defends itself ! and how gradually 
come upon us the approaches of sin ! Well, it is in 
this halting process that we find proof of guilt. In 
the clear light of this inspection, man is seen to be the 
arbiter of his own destiny. The overtures of God 
and the Devil being made, between the two, the man 
himself, by a single and decisive act of his will, must 
make a decision. Hesitate as you may, struggle as you 
may, magnify your temptation all you can ; yet all 
this can never undo the fact, that, to each suggestion 
of evil and good, you yourself make a decision. To 
each proposition of virtue and vice you finally say 
Yes or JVo. Nothing brings out so sharply the per- 
sonality of man as some act of sin. It brings him 
out into the foreground as an agent. He has the 
universe as the witness to his conduct. His decision 
is 7iis decision, and against God, in whom all which is 
assailable hy vice finds expression. 

I wish each of you, in whatever you may purpose 
of evil, to feel this. Upon the edge of this terrible 
ability to resist God plant yourself, and behold the 
abyss at your feet. Out of this thought comes also 
what might be called the hopefulness of morality. 
The assurance, "Resist the Devil, and he will flee from 
you^^' is a blessed and needed one. The thought 



RESISTANCE OF EVIL. 241 

that you can succeed in keeping your hand and heart 
clean is a constant inspiration to persevere. The 
contest, as waged by every man and woman against 
evil, is no longer a heavy, dragging, spiritless contest, 
but a brave and hopeful one. Through the heavy, 
lead-like color of our despair breaks the flush of am- 
ber, of orange, and of rose. The current we stand in 
is deep, swift, and hissing ; and who of us, at times, 
is not swayed and staggered by it ? But there is no 
reason why, by care and effort, — a careful placing of 
the feet, and keeping our powers well collected, — 
we cannot make headway against it. We do make 
headway. I trust there is no one of you, who has 
lived any considerable number of years, who does not 
feel that you are better, more noble and honest, than 
you once were. May God keep all of us from living 
a life like to a corpse in this, — that the passage of 
time brings nothing but darker discoloration and cor- 
ruption to it ! I take no sombre view of humanity. 
The leaven working in the race is not inoperative. 
The Light that has come into the world, and shined 
upon so many hearts, is quickening the germinal ca- 
pacities of man for virtue. The race is slowly but 
surely forging ahead. The waters behind are white 
with the freshening breeze ; and the purposes of 
God, like a mighty wind, will put an increasing press- 
ure upon the sails, and blow them grandly along. As 
a fleet of great merchantmen, impelled by the steady 
trade-winds, — their yards like bars of gold, their ropes 
like lines of ruby, — go sailing at morning toward the 
east and the rising sun ; so the race, in all its powers 



242 EESISTANCE OF EVIL. 

and motives, will be grandly luminous as it moves on 
into the light of the millennium. 

To realize the full effect of this thought upon 
character, to see how much it weighs in the balance 
of man's conduct, single out some young man in this 
audience, and observe its effect upon him. Grant 
that he has sense enough to see that his present 
course is leading him downward, conscience quick 
enough to regret it, and virtue enough to wish that 
it were not so : in brief, imagine him standing in 
that position in which every young man stands once 
or twice in his life, in which he asks himself, " Can 
I be good ? " Suppose some habit has fastened itself 
on him, and, leech-like, is so drawing the blood out of 
him, that he is frightened, and says, " Would to God 
I could deliver myself of this ! " Now, it makes a 
great difference with that young man's conduct, as 
he debates that question, — the most momentous 
question of his life, upon the decision of which all 
his life hangs, — what conclusion he arrives at. The 
worst possible feeling that he can yield to at that 
moment is that of despair. Then, too, it is that the 
value of a hopeful, cheering word, a friendly grip of 
the hand, or even a look bespeaking confidence in 
him, is incalculable. It acts as an electric shock on 
the benumbed powers of his moral nature ; it puts 
stiffness into his weak will ; it banishes the dark and 
gloomy thoughts out of his heart, and strings him 
up to the requisite tension. Out of such a loose, un- 
strung life, some of God's best melody often comes. 

Now, in such a crisis, the man must feel that he 



EESISTANCE OF EVIL. 243 

can succeed, or he will not even try. Every starter 
must have some hope of winning, or he will not enter 
to run. Hence the significance of this promise. It 
follows the command as the bugle of victory follows 
the deadly charge. It is God's premium on effort 
morally directed. The promise, you observe, is un- 
qualified. It is not, " Resist the Devil, and he mai/ 
flee from you ; " but he shall do it. Subtle and cunning 
as he is, persistent and eager as he is, yet in him is no 
power to make successful resistance to him, who, pan- 
oplied in noble determination, does battle for his life 
and the life of his soul. There are crowns hidden 
somewhere in the future for all ; and, for hands that 
grasp the sword of the Spirit, palms and harps are 
waiting. 

To live ignobly, friends, is, therefore, to live un- 
worthy of your clearest possibilities. In the waters 
of this assurance the dirtiest may wash and be 
cleansed. Behind the impossibility of betterment no 
one can take refuge ; for there is no such impossibil- 
ity. Circumstances may be against you, past habits 
against you, present irresolution against you ; but 
your future is unencumbered. The Devil holds no 
mortgage on that. It is yours to have and to hold, 
young man, and use as you see fit ; and God, 
through this text of ours, comes to each one of you 
to-day, and asks you how you will use it. "I care 
nothing about your past," he says : " every day may 
have been squandered. Here is the future. Not a 
day of it has been touched, not an hour used. I 
give it to you as a free gift, with all its chances of 



244 RESISTANCE OF EVIL. 

improvement, its opportunities of usefulness, its ex- 
hortations to virtue. Only ' resist evil,' only stand 
firm, only try, and whatever of good you in your 
better moments crave will come to you, and abide 
with 3'ou, as the light of the sun to-day comes to the 
earth, eliciting its manifold fruitage, and illuminating 
it from pole to pole. Yea, your life shall be like a 
globe belted and zoned with expressions of life ; and 
never shall there be an hour when some portion of 
it shall not be in flower and fruitfulness." 

This, then, is what constitutes the ugliness of sin, — 
that it is done from the heart. The author of sin is 
not content to increase sin merely : he wants sinners as 
well as sin. He strives not only to scatter the venom, 
but to multiply fangs. He desires, also, men to be sin- 
ful in and of themselves, — powers to work for him 
independent of him, as it were. He delights to have his 
agents do their work with a personal relish in it ; and 
thus he sustains through all his hellish legions a certain 
fiendish esprit de corps. Even as God wishes volun- 
tary saints, Satan longs for voluntary devils. 

But again: the wisdom of this injunction, "Resist 
the Devil," is seen when you reflect, that in resistance, 
and resistance alone, is safety. Between this and 
some other course there is no election : you must fight, 
or die. My friends, on some streams you can drift : 
but, in the rapids which plunge hellward, no man can 
lie on his back, and float ; he must keep in quick ner- . 
vous action, or sink. In his desire to possess the soul, 
Satan is insatiable. He does not want followers : he 
wants slaves. He is never satisfied until he orets the 



EESISTANCE OF EVIL. 245 

soul under his feet. When his foot is on its neck, and 
he can put the pressure of hell upon it at any mo- 
ment, he is content ; not before. 

Take the drunkard as an illustration. Consider by 
what easy stages Satan posted him to his ruin. Was 
not the first glass sweet, and its taste pleasant ? Did 
it not give play to fancy, and delightful fluency to the 
tongue ? Did it not warm the blood, and thrill the 
nerves ? Poverty, dishonor, disease, and a loathsome 
death, were not revealed to his eye as he drained the 
glass, proffered, perhaps, by beauty's hand. Would to 
God they had been ! Would that he might then have 
seen standing there, glass in hand, amid the gayety 
that rippled around him, rising in vivid vision out of 
that beaded glass, the woes that were to come in long 
and ghastly procession I Would that he could have 
seen the rags and tears, and heard the wails and the 
swift-smiting curses, that were to be for him and his ! 
Then would the coiled serpent have been revealed ; 
and, with one quick, nervous resolution,- he would 
then and there have cast the horrid peril from him. 
My people, do you ever think of the number of the . 
graves where drunkards sleep ? How heavily revolves 
the earth under the burden of these ! — heavily, I say ; 
for every grave is weighted, not with iron or lead, but 
with that which is far heavier than these in the bal- 
ance of God, — despair. " Write on my tombstone," 
screamed a dying drunkard once, — "write on my 
tombstone, and make the letters large, and hew them 
deep ; write but one word, ' Despair ! ' " There is not 
a person here, I presume, who would stab a man : yet 



246 RESISTANCE OF EVIL. 

there are men here into whose side you had better 
drive a knife, and let life out forever, than to offer 
a glass of wine ; for, should they drink, out of them 
would go what is sweeter and nobler than life, — hope 
and love, and fealty to virtue. Yet are there women 
who forget not to pray at night ; who, in their igno- 
rance or thoughtlessness, have caused men to become 
drunkards. Such ignorance, formerly, God winked at ; 
but now has he caused such light to shine upon this 
question, that those who sin must sin against light. 
O my people I pray for the men who stand in peril ; 
put the arms of your solicitude around them, and 
steady them ; strengthen the weak will ; confirm 
the feeble purpose ; help them to resist the Tempter. 
When we have done our utmost, thousands even then 
will perish. Alas for the men who rot out of exist- 
ence ; who are like trees when sap and life are gone, — 
unsightly formations of exhaustion and decay ! 

If ever one might pray to die, it is such. If ever 
the silver cord might be loosed or the golden bowl 
be broken without regret, it is then, w^hen life has 
lost not only its joys, but its usefulness, and the re- 
morse of the present has rendered the future harm- 
less. Oh charitable the earth that consents to cover 
such ! Oh kind the graves that hold and hide such 
wrecks and secrets of pollution ! 

But Satan is cunning ; and as the strokesman pats 
the neck of the silly beeve until he has noosed it for 
the slaughter, so he beguiles man until he has him 
fully in his power. No moderate drinker but that 
laughs at the idea of ever being a drunkard ; and yet 



RESISTANCE OF EVIL. 247 

every drunkard of to-day is from tlie ranks of the 
moderate drinkers of twenty years back, and every 
drunkard of twenty years ahead will come from the 
ranks of the moderate drinkers of to-day. Thus is it 
with all its doings. Hell is patient ; but it is the 
patience which springs from the knowledge that cer- 
tain causes inevitably lead to certain results. Young 
men, by gradual processes, are brought to be drunk- 
ards. By the same devilish gradations, young girls, 
spotless and white, are made to fill brothels. And 
thus, converging from every village and city in the 
land, from houses and cradles widely apart, the vast 
throng, a mighty caravan of lost souls, moves to the 
gates of hell with jest and mirth, the clash of cym- 
bals, and the uplifting of insanelj^-jubilant feet. 

The fact is, there is no end to wrong-doing or ill- 
feeling if you once begin, unless you break sharp off. 
Give temptation, — I do not mean temptation in the 
abstract, but temptation as it comes to you every day 
in the daily round of business and pleasure, — give 
it, I say, a spot on which to rest its lever, and it will 
topple over the stoutest virtue. A man should lit- 
erally " watch and pray " if he would keep out of 
peril. Some people, perhaps all of us at times, coax 
the Devil to enter them. They unnecessarily and 
repeatedly put themselves in the way of temptation. 
Like the shining fish on the edge of the maelstrom, 
they play about in the terrible suction of their appe- 
tites. They recklessly dash into currents in which 
not one man in ten can stand. What wonder you 
are growing to love money too much, my hearer ? do 



248 RESISTANCE OF EVIL. 

not all your surroundings nurse the passion ? Look 
at the company that young man keeps, the char- 
acter and habits of his chums, the places to which 
he resorts, and tell me if it is any wonder that his 
employers are anxious, and his friends alarmed. It 
seems to me, at times, as if men searched for cur- 
rents to sweep them away, and pits into which to 
stumble. I am fast growing to think that what men 
call temptation is very often nothing short of sheer, 
criminal carelessness; and that the apostle James 
covered the whole ground, and exhausted the re- 
sources of statement, when he insisted that men 
were tempted when " led away by their lusts and 
enticed." 

In view of what we have said, receive the exhorta- 
tion of the text. 

Resistance of evil is the only way to overcome evil. 
All of us will be assailed. Let us put on, therefore, 
the whole armor of God. Above all, see to it that 
your resistance has a heart in it. There is a seeming 
resistance which is not real resistance ; and the Devil 
knows it. There is a hesitating, half-and-half kind 
of refusal, which invites a second solicitation. The 
Tempter loves to hear a man say " No " as if he 
wanted all the while to say " Yes ; " for he knows 
that such a person is really with him at heart, and 
will be with him in act ere long. Satan sees when 
you have a secret hankering after what you profess 
not to like : he knows when you are virtuous from 
a fear of the consequences rather than from a high 
sense of obedience. 



EESISTANCE OF EVIL. 249 

I feel that some of you may be of the number 
of those to whom life in the flesh is but one pro- 
longed battle. To this you were predestined at birth. 
The elements of contention were distilled into you 
through either parent. Like Hercules, you may be 
said to have contended with serpents in your cradles. 
Would, as did he, you had slain them ! Remember 
tliat you are at once pilgrims and crusaders : with 
mailed hand and blistering feet you must urge your 
way toward the holy city ; and only after years of 
conflict, fought out in deserts and on mountain-side, 
— conflicts unpublished and unknown, — faint, and 
covered with scars, bleeding from many an unhealed 
wound, — never until then will you find peace and 
victory as you lay yourselves down at the tomb of 
Christ, and die. 

But let me encourage you. Into the din of your 
conflict with Satan I launch this note of inspiration : 
Feel that, no matter how thick the foes may swarm, 
victory lies ahead ; feel that there is a nobler life 
than you have thus far lived awaiting you ; that 
there are new and higher orders of thought to which 
your intellect shall yet climb ; ranges of feeling inex- 
perienced as yet on the earth, whose joy is yet to be 
yours, and aspirations which shall grow to you in the 
fulness of time as wings to waiting birds. Oh that 
a breath might come to you to-day out of that fra- 
grant future ! Oh for a glimpse of that transparent 
atmosphere, through which, as we see the blush in 
alabaster, the pure in heart see God ! The fathers 
sleep beneath us ; the race along the incline of privi- 



250 RESISTANCE OF EVIL. 

lege and opportunity moves upward, and will con- 
tinue to move until their feet shall stand upon that 
table-land which marks the summit of human de vel- 
opment, where Christ " shall see of the travail of his 
soul, and be satisfied." Then, standing amid the ran- 
somed race, in the midst of that blessed state of 
which he is the source and cause, shall he say, " For 
this I died. To make men strong in goodness, and 
equal in privilege ; to make them Godlike in their 
state, as the Father made them Godlike in their facul- 
ties, — this was my object. No longer may the souls 
that are beneath the altar complain ; for wickedness 
among men is ended, and I behold the blossoming of 
that consummate flower, which, through all these ages, 
was nourished and perfected of God." Then shall a 
shout arise such as heaven had never heard or felt 
until then, and a choral worthy of the audience and 
the hour shall swell ; and the words that ride like 
stately ships upon the waves of sound shall be, 
u Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power 
and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and 
glory and blessing ! " 

Who here is resisting evil ? Who here, in the spirit 
of which I have spoken, is acting as our text enjoins ? 
And who of us, ashamed of our weak and half-hearted 
resistance in the past, are pledging ourselves to a more 
strenuous and persevering resistance in the future ? 
The heart ready to make that pledge is ready to 
receive God's blessing, and in that state of readiness 
has already received it. 



SABBATH MORjriJTG, JUSE 4, 1871. 



sermon; 



SUBJECT.- LIVING FOR GOD'S GLORY. 
"Whether, therefore, ye eat or drenk, or whatsoever ye do, do 

ALE to the GEORY OF GOD." — 1 Cor. X. 31. 

THIS injunction has been and is greatly abused 
in practice, and in two entirely opposite ways. 
The one party abuses it by paying no attention to it 
at all. They care nothing about God's glory ; they 
do not strive to advance it ; it is a matter of su- 
preme indifference to them : they care nothing for it 
one way or the other. 

The other party is composed of those who do care 
about it, and, indeed, are exceedingly anxious that 
they may fulfil this injunction perfectly. Giving 
the most hteral and matter-of-fact interpretation to 
the command, they worry themselves over every 
little detail of conduct and each individual act. 
They are morbidly sensitive. They are Christiaq 
legalists, good-hearted Pharisees. Among them are 
many whose piety is ignorant, whose minds are nar- 
row and illogical, — people unable to see but one tree 
in a landscape. As a class, they are quite accurately 
typed and represented by a good old saint who came 

* This or the next issue will be the last till the close of Mr. Murray's 
vacation, -r Sept. 3. 251 



252 LIVING FOR GOD'S GLORY. 

to belabor me once because I played chess ; and who 
ended the discussion, and exhausted argument, to her 
own mind at least, when she exclaimed, " Can you 
believe, Mr. Murray, that moving those heathenish 
idols of bone over a board with Masonic characters 
upon it is acting for the glory of God?" She re- 
garded that as conclusive, — a shot between wind 
and water ; and, having delivered it as a farewell 
volley, departed. 

I have heard a deal of nonsense and stupidity 
based upon this text. I have heard it so interpreted 
in prayer-meeting exhortation, and even in one or 
two sermons, that no human being could' obey it ; 
and all the good it did was to disgust the sensible, 
and pain the conscientious but unlearned disciple. 
But no one has any right to so interpret and apply 
truth as to make it a stumbling-block to the soul that 
is honestly striving after goodness. We have no 
right to so define a command as to make obedience 
to it simply impossible. 

Now, friends, I will speak for a few moments in 
exposition of this passage ; will show jou how it can- 
not, and how it can, be obeyed. You shall have my 
idea of it, and the standpoint from which I regard it. 

The question first is, " What is meant by the 
' glory of God ' ? When is a thing done for the 
' glory of God ' ? " 

Fix first in mind this thought, that no deeds of ours 
add to or detract from God's glory. He is himself 
the source of his own glory. There is not an angel 
or saint in heaven that can add a singrle beam to the 



LIVING FOR GOD'S GLORY. 253 

radiant orb of his perfection ; there is not a devil 
in hell or a sinner on earth that can plack out or 
darken a single ray of that divine brightness which 
fills all heaven with light. God's glory is not con- 
tingent on the acts of any creature. From all eter- 
nity he has been what he is ; and to all eternity will 
he remain the same. 

When we do any thing for the glory of God, it is 
not to increase, to add to, his glory, — for that we can 
never do, — but to bring his glory out, and make it 
appear to the eyes of men. We do not give him 
what he has not, but cause what he has to be seen of 
men. A man who acts worthily, as God enjoins, 
causes men to acknowledge the source and origin of 
his worthiness. Thus the mother is honored when 
her son is honored : so, too, her virtue shines again 
in the virtue of her daughter. Any honorable con- 
duct, any graciousness of speech, any sweetness of 
disposition, which recognizes God as its author and 
source, is for the glory of God ; that is, makes the 
essential elements of his character to be loved. 

Now, this definition does away with that objective 
obedience to our text upon which so many insist, and 
substitutes a subjective form of obedience. It^for- 
bids the particularizing of acts and motives, and 
takes into view the habitual state of the soul and 
the tenor of the fife. Now, we all know that the 
human mind is subject to many motives ; that these 
motives are of various degrees of intensity. God 
did not make man to act as a piece of machinery 
held to its course by bolt and s'^.rew : he made man 



254 LIVING FOR GOD'S GLORY. 

for liberty, — the liberty of self-action. In all his 
impulses and sympathies there is a wide margin, a 
lateral sweep and swing of his powers, a certain 
playfulness and unrestrained action of his faculties. 
One duty, also, often includes other duties : the many 
are wrapped up in the one, — some larger, some 
smaller. We cannot do them all at once. We can- 
not have one and the same feeling in doing them. 
One duty demands for its performance a great im- 
pulse ; another is served by a much weaker incen- 
tive. One fixed state of mind, of invariable intensity, 
depth, and fervor, is not expected nor required. 
Take, for an illustration, a father's feelings toward 
his children and household. Take a business-man 
down town, as he sits in his office, or pushes past 
you on the streets. Of what is he thinking ? Is it 
of wife and children ? Not at all. In thought he 
is making a bargain. His affections are not now in 
the ascendency; but judgment, calculation, fore- 
thought, are uppermost. Yet he is a father and a 
husband as truly as if he had his boy on his knee, 
and his wife by his side. He is fulfilling his duty as 
head of a family, although he is not at the moment 
' thinking of his family. He is walking by the light 
of the sun, although his eye is not on the sun. He is 
performing a great duty, although the duty is not in 
his mind at all. 

Something like this is our relation to God. The 
great duty of our life is to glorify him ; but they 
make a great mistake who think that that must con- 
tinually be the uppermost thought. A carriage-maker 



LIVING FOR GOD'S GLORY. 255 

does not make a wheel all at once, but spoke by spoke ; 
and, when he is shaping a spoke or a felly, he is thinking 
about that, and not of the entire wheel. The highest 
motive is not always necessary or proper. A butcher 
is doing his duty when he kills a beeve ; but it would 
be nonsense, not to say impiety, to ask him if he dealt 
the blow or used his knife for the glory of God. A 
Christian has no right to vulgarize his religion by 
such forced interpretations ; he has no right to put a 
strained significance upon or make a strained appli- 
cation of a passage which was written to express a 
great principle, — too great to be expressed by any one 
act of our life, but by the life taken as a whole. A 
boy does not slide down hill or skate, or a girl play 
croquet or practise calisthenics, for the glory of God; 
and yet these sports are innocent and healthy. Taken 
in connection with the entire life, the physical devel- 
opment and formation of character, they are in per- 
fect accord with the injunction of our text ; but taken 
in a detached, a separate sense, they fulfil nothing but 
pure youthful vivacity and physical impulse. 
, Our idea is, then, of this passage, that it is to be 
taken in its large, general sense. It has no appli- 
cation to pudding and pies, playing chess and whist, 
and the thousand and one accompaniments of physi- 
cal and social life. It is intended to cover the main 
drift and tendency of a life, and not particular acts, 
momentary impulses, and transient states of feeling. 
It is globular, and not atomic. It is vast as the earth, 
and not minute and special as a grain of sand. 

You have now my ideas in respect to this passage 



256 LIVING FOR GOD'S GLOEY. 

touching its significance and limitations. Under our 
conception of it, it cannot be abused, perverted, or 
vulgarized. It points directly to the existence in the 
human soul of one central and all-including motive, 
not antagonistic to, but in perfect harmony with, 
countless other motives, as the trunk of the tree is in 
harmony with the branches and the numberless out- 
lying leaves. It makes fulfilment possible, and hence 
a duty. It exalts and ennobles life, without vulgariz- 
ing by false applications the divine rule by which we 
are to live. It makes what was painful soothing to 
the anxious conscience, and forbids ignorance and 
hypocrisy to appropriate it to their own low and un- 
scriptural uses. 

This, then, is what I regard as the true scope and 
significance of the passage ; and I will proceed at once 
to the application. 

And, in the first place, it is an exhortation to all 
human creatures, and especiall}^ to all professed Chris- 
tians, to give in all their doings a due recognition of 
God. 

To start with, b}^ nature man is his own god. Self- 
love rules. It is his own interest he is looking after ; 
it is his own fame and honor he is striving to estab- 
lish ; it is his own gratification that he seeks. The 
mass of men live selfish lives. Seventeen men out 
of every twenty that you meet on the street are plan- 
ning and working for self. The rights of others, save 
as their own are included therein, the good of their 
neighbors, above all, the " glory of God," is not in all 
their thoughts. Tliis is man's state hy nature, the 



LIVING FOR GOD'S GLORY. 257 

demonstration of which position is to be found both 
in the Scriptures and in o^r own consciousness. But 
Christians are people whose nature has been changed, 
renewed. We are not as we were. We stand, not 
as the earth stands at night, when the heavens are 
cold, and the ground damp, and every beauty is hid- 
den in gloom, but as the world appears in the morn- 
ing, when the air is genial, and the ground warm, and 
all the loveliness of hill, river, and plain, is brought 
out by the light of the risen sun. For the Lord has 
shined upon us out of his glory, and the otherwise 
dark orbs of our lives are luminous. Still we are not 
immaculate. Even the finest texture can receive a 
stain. We are as those who walk through crowds, 
arrayed in white and with flowing robes. We are 
pushed against, and soiled. We are creatures of habit 
also. As tuneful birds will catch a sweet or a vicious 
note from hearing it, so we borrow discord from dis- 
cord around us. Even the best forces of our nature 
lead us astray. Economy, unless watched, becomes 
sordidness ; ambition, unscrupulousness ; pride, arro- 
gance ; self-esteem, vanity. From all these and count- 
less other causes, we are operated upon to our hurt. 
The goal is lost sight of in the dust of the course ; 
and, owing to the multitude and rush of the runners, 
we get excited, lose self-control, and like a vicious or 
frenzied horse, when in the very home-stretch, bolt. 
This text has, therefore, to us all, fellow-Christians, a 
solemn and needed application. It exhorts us to 
recognize God in all our plans and purposes, — rec- 
ognize his authority over us, his ownership in us, 



258 LIVING FOR GOD'S GLORY. 

his gracious love for us. I think a vast deal of this 
last thought, — God's love for us as a restraining and 
reforming power in our hearts. Why, what can- 
not love do ? By the power of it, men lost to all 
sense of manhood have been reformed. Its hand has 
touched the shoulders of thousands when they stood 
poised on the brink of precipices, about to take the 
fatal leap ; and the would-be suicide turned back, and 
bore for j^ears the burden of life without murmuring. 
It has entered the room of raving madness ; spoken 
one word ; and, at the sound of it, madness has depart- 
ed, and Reason returned with tears of joy to her 
throne. It has gone in search of the lost, found them, 
and led them back to duty and home. Its power, 
being of God, is omnipotent. It is that one thing to 
which death yields; and the grave, hallowed by its 
presence, becomes a bower, where spirits come down 
and hold communion with flesh, relieving the gloom 
around it with a presence bright with the radiance 
of the skies. And if there is a soul here in the 
divine presence at this moment, a worn, jaded, dis- 
couraged soul ; a single man who has lost confidence 
in liis fellow-men, and even in himself ; or a woman 
over whose life, as over a summer's landscape, a frost 
has come, and bitter winds blown and shaken all her 
hopes down like withered leaves, — I declare to all such 
my belief that God's love has come and is coming 
down into this church to bless them to-day, and is 
here and now seeking to enter into their hearts of 
wretchedness, and make them hearts of joy. 

Now, my people, the exhortation of this text to 



LIVING FOR GOD'S GLORY. 259 

you all is, Bring out more prominently to your minds, 
realize more fully in your feelings, the existence and 
supervision of God. Let this thought come down 
upon and mingle with the soil of your lives as the rain 
permeates the soil of the earth. Such a belief, 
heartily received into the soul, makes a most fruitful 
impression on a man's conduct. A thousand dormant 
sensibilities, like long-sown seeds, unquickened by 
reason of drought, suddenly become germinant at its 
touch, and the sterile nature is clothed with heavenly 
verdure. Put this recognition of God as a pilot at 
the helm of your life ; let it steer you across the sea 
of all your worldly plans, direct you in all your pur- 
poses, — and your soul will come to the conclusion of 
its voyage as a rich-freighted ship, blown by favoring 
winds, comes into port with her sails all lighted up 
with the glory of a summer's sunset. Even trouble 
will be to you, in your relation to God, what night is 
to the sky above 3'ourhead. Its shadows are, indeed, 
sombre and oppressive ; hut, Avithoiit its darkness, 
you would never have known the stars. 

My second remark is, that the passage exhorts us 
to a wise gravity. 

I fear that half the lives lived are frivolous lives. 
Not a few, especially among the female portion of so- 
ciety, are living without an object. Half of them are 
educated not to have an object ; that is, they are 
brought up in such a manner that they cannot very 
well have any object in life. They are protected 
by an unwise affection from both the necessity and 
the opportunity of labor, — that postern-gate through 



260 LIVING FOR GOD'S GLORY. 

which each faculty must pass to reach its throne. 
They are surrounded with brain-softening and energy- 
sapping leisure : their life is one sterile desert of un- 
employed time. I cannot expand this thought to-day 
as I wish I might. I believe that I have the pleasure 
of speaking weekly to an audience, a large majority 
of whom is composed of workers both in material and 
moral directions. I cherish as a precious thought 
the belief that you represent a very high average of 
effort and usefulness. Half the strength of my min- 
istry would go out of me, and all its joy, should the 
suspicion ever enter my head that I was preaching to 
a cluster of drones. A man works better in company 
than he does alone. It is dreary business to hoe in a 
ten-acre lot of corn without a comrade. Toil never 
so hard, you eke your way so slowly into the wide 
expanse of growing weeds ! It is a cheering thought 
that fifty other men are preaching around me in the 
city to-day. We seldom meet ; we may not know 
each other by face : but I know that they are hard at 
work, and they know that I am ; and so, by a kind of 
unconscious co-operation, we uphold each other. Did 
you ever think that the mass of the church are to 
the pulpit what the tide is to a ship ? You buoy it 
up, and keep it afloat. You make it able to carry 
God's freight of instruction and reproof, of warning 
and appeal. It is not the ships alone that do the com- 
merce of, and build up, the world : every drop of water 
under their keels contributes a share to the glory and 
wealth of a nation's marine. And so every praying 
soul, every sympathetic heart, every friendly face, 



LIVING FOR GOD'S GLORY. 261 

every trusty hand that meets warmly the seeking 
palm, contributes its proportion, and adds its share, to 
make the ministry a ministry of power. 

But it is possible, that, in such a throng of friends 
and strangers, there may be some living without a 
purpose, — living lives devoid of energy and object. 
If such a one is here, listen to me. How dare you 
live in idleness (you call it leisure) when the best 
voices of the world are calling for help ? How dare 
you fritter away your time in self-amusement ? How 
can you sit and play with tinted shells upon the beach, 
when on the crest of every Avave that rolls in against 
the rocks appears a white and ghastly face, and arms 
toss, and, mingled with the roar of the deadly waves, 
a thousand voices cry, " Help us, for God's sake ! or 
we sink" ? Is this the time to dance and chat, and 
plan for selfish pleasure, when the Spirit of God is call- 
ing upon you for service " with groanings that cannot 
be uttered " ? Cease this hfe of frivolity, of ease, of 
selfish pleasure, which you have been living. Cease 
to be a floating feather that has no object, and knows 
not its own path. Become a drop of rain, at least, to 
some herb or plant that is dying for want of moisture 
beneath you. Help some one ; lift some one. I charge 
you, to-day, to put some action for man and God into 
your life, or you shall be to man and God what those 
feathers are to the eagle, which, too dull for ornament, 
and too weak for power, he plucks from out his wings, 
and casts upon the gale, while he soars in disdain away. 

Now, the first thing for one to do who would live 
for the glory of God is to live without sin. He who 



262 LIVING FOR GOD'S GLOEY. 

sins cannot glorify God. It is in virtue and personal 
holiness that man- most glorifies his Maker. There is 
an objective service, by doing which we serve God ; 
but there is a subjective work, a work in our own souls, 
which, being well done, exalts him even more. I pray 
all you young people not to overlook this. Within 
yourselves is the great vineyard you are to till. Woe 
to the Christian who neglects himself I Woe to the 
man who keeps his eyes fastened on his neighbor's 
lamp, and lets his own go out ! When the Bridegroom 
comes, that man shall not go in with him to the feast. 
At the judgment, when all heaven shall see you, and 
you shall see yourself as never before, the examina- 
tion will be into the condition of one soul. Whose 
soul will it be ? — your wife's ? your husband's ? your 
friend's ? your pastor's ? No : it will be concerning 
the condition of your own. 

My friend, I would not abuse the privilege of my 
office by becoming inquisitorial. I would not obtrude 
an offensive curiosity upon you. I seek not to enter 
the closet in which hang the secrets of your life. My 
eye is not enough like Christ's to look upon the con- 
dition of your heart : I would not see its wealth or 
poverty if I could. Search the closet yourself. While 
we stand with averted faces, open the door, and enter 
in where you can see in the condition of your soul the 
results of your life up to this point of your career, — 
the traces which the years have left upon you. How 
does it look ? what is its condition ? Outwardly you 
are all right ; I see nothing amiss in you : but God 
looketh not at the outward appearance, but at the 



LIVING FOE GOD'S GLOEY. 263 

heart. My exhortation, therefore, is, that you seek to 
purify that. Be so good, that you shall never be able 
to appear as good as you are. Do not deem this 
charge strange. Holiness can never perfectly ex- 
press itself in the flesh. It is beyond and above mor- 
tal expression. It needs the heaven, it needs the 
spiritualized form and feature, it needs the celestial 
sphere of duty and life, it needs God's presence, it 
needs the employment of the skies, before it can ever 
be fully seen. Have you such a holiness in you, 
a pent-up holiness, a holiness fettered by the flesh, a 
holiness which, like a caged bird, can never show its 
power of wing, never express its full capacity of song ? 
There is one other application given to this passage 
by certain people which I regard as unjust and un- 
wise. They make it an exhortation to solemnity. 
They hurl it against all manner of light and healthy 
amusement. They thrust it as a gag into the mouth 
of mirthfulness to prevent laughter. There are peo- 
ple who are not willing to let men and women remain 
as God made them, but would shave down, and clip 
off, and make them all over again. I receive a let- 
ter almost every day, proposing to take me in hand, 
and make me all over into an entirely different sort 
of a man. I dare say that there is need enough of 
it ; and I trust that time, and God's transforming 
grace, will make all needed changes. But, somehow 
or another, I never could bring my mind to put much 
confidence in these social and moral tinkers. It 
makes a vast difference what model a sculptor has 
when he begins to chisel ; and if this class of people 



264 LIVING FOK GOD'S GLORY. 

should model me over, and make me like unto them- 
selves, I should be "of all men the most miserable " ! 
Now, this passage, although appropriated by this class 
of people, does not belong to them, as I have shown. 
It enjoins innocence and earnestness, and recognition 
of God in our lives ; but it does not interfere with the 
exercise of those emotions and impulses which give 
dash and relish to our daily life. Least of all has 
one the right to put a harsh and arbitrary application 
to it as a bar to social and domestic enjoyment. The 
question all turns on this : WTiat is for God's glory ? 
And I hold that the innocent exercise of every 
faculty with which he has endowed us is for his 
glory ; for sure is it that he would never have be- 
stowed any faculty upon us, which, being exercised 
along the line of its evident adaptation, would not be 
for his glory. Now, the exercise of one faculty is no 
more, in itself considered, for the glory of its Maker, 
than another. Gravity is no more honorable to God 
than mirthfulness. There are more exhortations in 
the Bible to praise than to prayer. Yet you find 
people constantly talking and acting on the assump- 
tion that laughter is not religious, — not fit for God's 
presence ; and that, if one cannot contain his feel- 
ings, if his gratitude and happiness must find ex- 
pression, he must let them out, not in a gush of 
song and shout, in which the whole body shall sym- 
pathize as did Miriam's with her companions when 
she danced her dance of joy before the Lord for their 
deliverance, but in a kind of religious wail. I ob- 
ject on the most serious grounds to all such views. 



LIVING FOR GOD'S GLORY. 265 

They mislead people as to what is the nature and 
result of Christian life. God does not drive us into 
his vineyard nor keep us there by bolt and shackle 
and whip. I am not forced to serve Christ any more 
than I was driven to love him. I do it of my own 
free will, and therefore cheerfully. The average state 
of a Christian soul should be a happy one. Chris- 
tians should sing while they work, as birds while 
building their nests and gathering food for their 
young. I remember hearing a story of a ferryman 
who agreed to take a lovely girl, who was flying from 
a cruel father, over the river ; and, before starting, he 
turned to her lover, and said, " As long as you hear 
me singing, you may know we are safe." Well, they 
started. Darkness and the storm closed in upon 
them ; but ever and anon, through the roar of the 
gale and the surge of the billow, came to the anx- 
ious listener, ringing loud and clear, the notes of the 
boatman's song. This is precisely the case with those 
who are seeking escape from Satan. Amid no mat- 
ter what perils, I never despair of a soul ; for while, 
over the roar of a fiercer storm and the surge of 
wilder billows, I can hear it singing as it toils at the 
oar, I feel it is safe. Many of you will remember 
that passage in " The Pilgrim's Progress " where ^ 
disciple is represented as going down into a dark 
valley ; and, as he is creeping along, he begins to shud- 
der and be afraid: but just as he is about to give up, 
and turn back in despair, he hears a strong, clear voice 
ahead of him, chanting, " Though I walk through 
the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no 



266 LIVING FOK GOD'S GLORY. 

evil," and he takes courage, and goes on. Brave 
song, that ! And so, perhaps, my good brother or sis- 
ter iu Christ, there may be some poor soul back of 
you creeping along with fear and trembling amid the 
experience of life, poor, timid, and heart-broken. 
You cannot go back and creep with him ; you can- 
not grope amid the darkness of that despair with 
him : but you can do one thing, — you can lift up 
your voice, and sing some song of holy confidence, 
some sublime hymn of trust ; and God shall float the 
sounds back to that halting soul, and he shall be 
cheered and strengthened and saved by your joy. 

And now, friends, I have told you, in brief, how this 
passage looks to me ; what its limitations are on the 
one hand, and what its scope is on the other. I have 
only opened the door, and brought your feet to the 
threshold. Move along into the vestibule ; thence 
advance in thought until you stand beneath the vast 
and uplifted dome that roofs this sublime injunction. 
Uncover your heads as you stand beneath it, your- 
selves dwarfed by its colossal proportions. Hear the 
swell and roll of the anthem poured forth by unseen 
choirs; breathe the air whose every particle is fra- 
grant with the incense of praise unto the Lord, until 
you catch the inspiration of those who wait and serve 
ceaselessly and in joy before God, and you say, in a 
voice such as a man uses, when, in the hush of even- 
ing, he kneels in prayer at the base of mountains, 
" Grant, O Thou that strengtheneth man ! that what- 
soever I do, whether I eat or drink, I may do all for 
thy glory. Grant this, O Lord ! and I ask no more." 



SABBATH MOBJ^ING, JUJ^E 11, 1871. 



SERMOK 



SUBJECT. -MINISTERIAL VACATIONS: THEIR NECESSITY AND VALUE. 



'Let HEM THAT IS TAUGHT IN THE WORO COMMtlNICATE UNTO HIM THAT 
TEACHETH IN ALL GOOD THINGS."— Gal. vi. 6. 



IN many passages of Scripture, allusion is made 
to the duty of the churches to keep in mind the 
happiness and well-being of those whom God, in the 
ways of his providence, has appointed as their spiritu- 
al teachers. The duty to watch over and care for each 
other is reciprocal between a pastor and his people. 
He must spend and be spent for them ; and they are 
to make all needed contributions to him. I wish, in 
this discourse, — the last I shall make to you before 
I leave on my vacation, — to speak to you, and 
through you to the public at large, upon a subject 
which I regard of the utmost importance, because it 
relates to the happiness and usefulness of many ear- 
nest and devoted men now laboring with the churche? 
in the ministry of Christ. The topic I have selected, 
under which to group certain suggestions, is, " Minis- 
terial vacations : their necessity and value." If, by 
speaking, I shall, to any considerable extent, succeed 
in calling the attention of the churches to the subject, 



268 MINISTEKIAL VACATIONS: 

if I shall cause tliem to better understand and appre- 
ciate the labors and necessities of their respective 
pastors, I shall have accomplished my object, and feel 
amply rewarded. 

I speak without embarrassment upon this otherwise 
delicate subject, because, in the first place, I present 
the claims of men, who, as a class, are confessedly la- 
borious in their habits. The clergy of the nation can 
challenge comparison with any other equal number 
of men touching close application to the duties of 
their calling. They are hard workers. I do not 
hesitate to express the conviction, that no other 
men, either in business or professional life, work, on 
the average, so many consecutive hours in a day, 
as do those who fill the American pulpits. Certain 
it is that no other do any such amount of night- 
work as clergymen. The season divinely appointed 
and peculiarly adapted for recreation and rest is 
the one which the circumstances of the minister's 
life force him to devote to the severest toil. The 
day is often one of distraction, — full of changing du- 
ties and cares, which hurr}^ him from one appointment 
to another, — so that composition is impossible. He 
turns to the night-season as his last resort. When 
his parishioners sleep, they cannot, at least, interrupt 
his toil. When, by every law of Nature, therefore, he 
should be in his bed, he can be found at his study-table. 
When his brain should be gathering strength in repose, 
it is being inflamed with intense activity. Night after 
night, for weeks together, have I sat, and worked at 
the composition of my sermons, from eight in the 



THEIR NECESSITY AND VALUE. 269 

evening until t^yo o'clock in the morning : indeed, for 
months at a time since I came to this city, this has 
been the rule of my life. Nor is this habit so rare 
among clergymen as you might think. Scores and 
scores of men in the ministry are working nearly if 
not equally as hard. Their sleep is not regulated by 
the necessities of nature, but according to the de- 
mands of professional duty. They feel that it is 
wrong, abstractly considered; they know that it 
means premature aging, and perhaps death. But 
what can they do ? They are in a current that runs 
so swiftly, that they dare not even turn the prow of 
the boat toward the shore. They must keep it in 
direct line, and not miss a stroke. I feel, therefore, 
as I said, no embarrassment in presenting the claims 
of these men to the courtesy of the churches, be- 
cause, in the first place, they are industrious men. 
They are hard workers and willing workers. They 
are not shirks, nor idlers. Their works speak for 
them. Look at what they produce ! Behold what 
they accomplish ! Their voice and presence are every- 
where. Observe their faces. Drones do not have 
such a look. Anxieties, cares, perplexities, disappoint- 
ments, a sleepless activity of mind, — these have 
wrought their impression upon the faces of the men 
of whom I speak, and made the lines long, and hewn 
them deep. Standing with such an array of faces 
back of me, — faces of men whose jt)y it has been to 
bear the burdens of others as well as their own; 
whose joy it has been to spend and be spent for Him 
whose self-sacrifice for man has been the cloud and 



270 MINISTERIAL VACATIONS: 

pillar of fire to their lives ; whose joy it is, whether 
amid courtesy and appreciation, or rudeness and neg- 
lect, to give themselves for others' good, — standing 
thus, I say, I am not ashamed to present their claims. 
Nor, in the second place, am I ashamed, because I 
speak not of these alone, but for the welfare of the 
churches also.. In our church polity, the minister is, 
and must ever be, the prominent source of influence. 
The pulpit is with us the prime factor of power and 
usefulness. The sermon is the favorite agency in our 
method of evangelization. If the pulpit is weak, the 
church languishes, distractions occur, and religion is 
crippled in every phase of its manifestation. It may 
be that the system is in part wrong; it may be 
that instruction pushes devotion too much aside ; 
that our congregations should be, beyond what they 
are now, worshippers as truly as students. Be this as 
it may, still the fact remains (and I think it would 
remain even if the change that we have hinted at 
should be made), that the pulpit i's to-day the right 
arm of our power. Through it, our scholarship finds 
its most popular and efficient expression. Through 
it, applications of the Scripture are enforced, and 
the proclamation of the gospel most efficiently 
made. This is undeniable. But what, pray, is the 
pulpit ? and whence comes its power ? The interroga- 
tion answers itself. There is no power nor grace nor 
energy in the pulpit save as it exists in and is ex- 
pressed by the individual members of the ministry. 
The minister who fills it is the pulpit. It is strong 
or weak accordinsr as he is strong or weak. Its 



THEIR NECESSITY AND VALUE. 271 

strength is individual, its weakness individual. Its 
potency is exactly graduated by the physical, men- 
tal, and spiritual condition of the man who for the 
time fills it. Whatever is adapted to make me 
strong in my bodily powers, fresh and active in mind, 
hopeful and aspiring of soul, is the very thing adapted 
to strengthen and bless you. My physical and men- 
tal condition, even my moods, affect you. You gain 
or lose by what is gain or loss to me. To borrow a 
couplet from England's laureate, — 

" We rise or fall together, 
Dwarfed or Godlike, bond or free." 

The connection between a pastor and his people is 
a close and vital one, — even that of essence with es- 
sence, and mind with mind. The heaven of thought 
above us is one ; and whatever darkens me casts a 
shadow upon you. This is the universal law dominant 
over all the churches. I seek to hasten the day when 
it shall be recognized ; when, the members of a church 
shall feel toward their pastor as children old enough 
to apprehend relations feel toward the head of the 
family. His health, his happiness, his prosperity, are 
precious to them, not alone because they love him, 
but because their condition is affected by his. They 
are rich when he is rich ; they are poor when he is 
poor. This, then, is my proposition, that whatever is 
calculated to make the minister of a church healthier 
in body, fresher in mind, hopeful and unvexed in 
spirit, is, to the same extent, calculated to better the 
church of which he is the pastor. 



272 MINISTERIAL VACATIONS: 

It is, therefore, not alone the claims of the clergy, 
personally considered, that I present to-da}^, when I 
urge the churches to allow their several pastors time 
to rest, and recruit their overtaxed and nearly ex- 
hausted physical and mental powers, but the claims 
of the churches also, and, considered in its largest 
sense, the claims of religion itself. 

So much by way of explanation. I will proceed 
now to point out briefly whence arises the need of an 
annual vacation to a pastor. Let us search for the 
causes which account for and gauge the lassitude and 
exhaustion which all clergymen in active service at 
times feel. 

The first cause I would mention is intense and long- 
continued mental effort. 

Above all other public speakers, the preacher must 
think profoundly and without intermission. The 
themes of which he treats are sublime ; and their 
proper treatment demands great altitude of mind. 
His subjects are often extremely intricate, and call 
for great care in their analysis. "Wide reading, and 
laborious comparison of many authors, he must not 
neglect. His work is largely that of creation of 
thought, — the most exhaustive of all mental processes. 
Other things being equal, the man who studies most 
preaches best. Granite, and chiselled granite at that, 
is what men bring together when they would build a 
palace. Now, ever}^ sermon should be a palace, con- 
structed with sentences like polished stones, massive 
and fair to look upon, having in it somewhere a throne 



THEIR NECESSITY AND VALUE. 273 

of amethystine thought on which Christ is seated like 
a great king. Such sermons are not constructed in a 
day. The man who writes such a sermon must put 
his best life into it. Every faculty of his mind must 
be summoned and taxed. Memory, judgment, per- 
ception, imagination, the emotions, — all are laid un- 
der tri])ute. In this business, work tells. Genius alone 
never writes such discourses. Beaten oil is alone fit 
for the sanctuary. What is more wretched than to 
eee a preacher make a verbal catapult of himself, and 
pelt his audience with words ! When you hear a man 
yelling very loudly in his pulpit, you ma.y know that 
he has thought very little in his study. A violent, 
red-in-the-face, perspiring kind of oratory has not the 
first element of appropriateness to it in the sanctu- 
ary. Such " gifted " preachers are, far the most part, 
gifted only as to their lungs. If I urge that these 
have a vacation, it is solely out of pity for their con- 
gregations. What a blessing it must be for a people 
to be delivered from such a man a whole month in 
the year! What a chance it would give the "still 
small voice," Avhich for eleven months had been 
drowned amid the crash of exploding vocabularies, to 
be heard ! Why, an intelligent conversion might oc- 
cur during the four weeks of such a man's absence ! 

Not only is it hard, brain-tasking work to prepare 
an instructive and soul-quickening sermon, but it is 
a task that is never ended. There is no opportunity 
for the overworked brain to rest. No sooner is one ser- 
mon delivered than another must be begun. Even the 
sabbath, which brings to the mind of the lawyer and 



274 MINISTEPcIAL VACATIONS: 

the business-man a period of repose, only puts an ad- 
ditional burden upon the clergyman. The day which 
God ordained as a day of rest to all his creatures on 
the earth, — the wisdom of the appointment being seen 
even in the necessities of the lowest parts of our or- 
ganization, — is, by the very nature of his office, a day 
of toil, and often of worry, to the minister. Thus 
the sabbaths repeat themselves ; thus are his appoint- 
ments inexorably multiplied in monotonous succes- 
sion, — the tension upon his nervous system forever 
kept taut, and his work never done. His brain, like 
another Sisyphus, labors ceaselessly to heave up a 
stone, which is as ceaselessl}^ rolling down upon it, — 
an ever-beginning, never-ending toil. No wonder 
that such work kills men ; no wonder that the brain 
at last softens, and reason, like an overstrained cord, 
snaps. No wonder that pliancy departs from a bow 
that is never unstrung. I do not hesitate to say that 
lassitude and sluggishness of mind in such cases are 
salvation to the mind. Like the stupor which falls 
upon a beaten slave, making him insensible to the 
lash when agony longer felt would bring madness or 
death, it is the last and kind refuge which Nature has 
made that her noblest and best-loved child may not 
perish. When sermons grow dull ; when the imagina- 
tion of the preacher halts in its flights, and its crea- 
tions no longer shoot up like morning birds out of 
the mist into the clear light ; when reason falters, and 
the argument is evidently feeble ; when the applica- 
tion lacks force, the suggestions pungency, and the 
exhortation is only like the sound of wind in the air, 



THEIR NECESSITY AND VALUE. 275 

that sways nothing, and shows no results, — know 
then, O ye listeners in the pews ! that your minister is 
overworked ; that his powers are exhausted, and im- 
peratively need repose. Bid him then stop work. 
Treat him, at least, in the same spirit of love (which 
is that of economy also) that marks the conduct of 
the owner toward a favorite horse when the noble 
animal begins to show signs of overwork. Forbid 
that a harness be put on him, and let him rest. 

It is just at such a point in his experience that fur- 
ther labor tells the most severely upon a minister. 
No one knows better when a sermon comes below 
the average than a preacher ; no one feels it so poign- 
antl}^ Oh the mortification of delivering a poor 
sermon before an intelligent audience ! Who shall 
describe it ? To come to your pulpit consciously un- 
prepared ; to feel, that, intellectually, you are going 
to your disgrace ; to feci that friends will be disap- 
pointed ; that enemies will find in your weakness the 
fulfilment of their malicious but iterated predictions ; 
that your usefulness will be impaired, and the sub- 
limity of religion itself unmanifested, — this, friends, 
to a capable and sensitive man, is torture. Such an 
experience during the day brings a sleepless night. 
To memory it is as a sting that has poison in it : 
it rankles ; it leads to ministerial dejection and 
moodiness ; it sours the temper, and introduces, at 
last, a fatal self-distrust into the mind. It is simple 
and downright cruelty to make a man preach when 
to preach means mortification and disgrace. TJie 
man is a brute who will scar with his spur the flank 



276 MINISTERIAL VACATIONS: 

of a blooded horse that has carried him with a mag- 
nificent stride for forty-five miles, unless the emer- 
gency is one of life and death ; and I say (and T 
wish I could say it in every church in the land), — I say 
that it is likewise brutal for a congregation to com- 
pel an active-minded and willing servant of Christ to 
]>reach fifty-two sermons in a year, when at the 
iorty-fifth he is evidently jaded and worn. There is 
a right and a wrong to this matter. It is a question 
of conscience as truly as of expediency. It is not a 
question of shrewd bargaining, but of mutual benefit. 
There is another source of exhaustion which the 
pastor of a church must contend against, and which 
is liable to be overlooked or misunderstood by the 
majority of people, because not experienced by them. 
I refer to that tax which the circumstances of his life 
and surroundings levy upon his emotional nature. 
God has made the human heart extremely sensitive. 
It responds readily to exhibitions of suffering and dis- 
tress. Nothing but gross barbarism releases men 
from the conditions of sympathy. Even nature, 
when not utterly brutalized, weeps with those that 
weep, and laughs with those that laugh. Men thus 
become connected. The isolation of selfishness, of 
barbarism, is broken into ; and they humanely mingle 
in loving, sympathetic companionship. This beauti- 
ful characteristic religion fosters. Grace quickens 
the generous and noble elements of our natures, un- 
til, in the best expression of our lives, we have and 
share all things in common. Into this sensitiveness, 
this state of humane impulse, this life of love and 



THEIR NECESSITY AND VALUE, 277 

sympathy, the clergyman, by his very office and mis- 
sion, is educated. The griefs of others become, in 
their effect upon him, his own. Their burdens and 
trials, their perplexities and disappointments, their 
dejections and sorrows, affect him deeply. He carries 
them all around with him in his thoughts : he re- 
joices that he can do it. But, nevertheless, the 
*' care of all the church," added to his own personal 
and domestic cares, weigh him down grievously. 
They worry and distract his mind ; they take the 
buoyancy out of him ; they exhaust him as excessive 
weeping does the mourner. I realize how imperfectly 
I am expressing this ; for the ten months in which I 
have stood steadily in this pulpit, with the exception 
of a single sabbath, in connection with my other 
cares, have exhausted me, and my mind works slug- 
gishly. The memory reaches out too slowly to cap- 
ture and retain the fugitive conception : but my 
brethren in the ministry, at least, will know what I 
mean ; and their hearts will cry out, " It is all true ! 
Beyond my brain-labor as a source of exhaustion to 
me has been my heart-labor. Emotionally I am even 
more exhausted than I am mentally. The burdens 
that my people cannot see are even heavier than those 
that they behold." 

My friends, God grants unto every body and brain 
a certain amount of power. It is a definite quantity 
touching its expansion. Man can, in his best estate, 
accomplish only so much. On the other hand, it can be 
diminished down through all the grades of exhaustion. 
This, in the ministry as truly as in other professions 



278 MINISTERIAL VACATIONS: 

in our country, is to-day being done, and to a fearful 
extent. The ministry, as a class, are overworked and 
underfed. They are ill supplied with the means and 
appliances which they need in order to reach their 
highest usefulness for God and man. If the pulpit, 
as magazine-writers claim, is weak, the causes of that 
weakness can be easily ascertained. The flume is 
larger than the stream ; the watershed of supply is 
scant, and the showers infrequent. Many of our 
churches are treating the ministry in the spirit of 
shrewd bargaining. The question before the com- 
mittee is, " How little can we give, and how much can 
we get?" Strip it of all religious forms and pious 
cant, and that is just what you have left. Instead of 
voting a vacation to the pastor gladly, regarding it 
as a positive gain to them, they discuss it meanly, and 
vote it niggardly, as if they were voting a deprivation, 
and not a benefit, to themselves. I wish that the pas- 
tors over such congregations — and their name is 
Legion — would combine, and make a grand ministerial 
"strike," each of them saying, "Give me a chance 
to recruit my strength expended in j^our service, or 
else get you another man for your pastor." I would 
like to see a church, with such an advertisement of 
stupidity and meanness tacked to its name, go into 
the work of " candidating." It would have to " can- 
didate " through three generations before it found a 
pastor, unless it discovered somewhere a man as mean 
as itself ! 

My friends, you have been trying for twenty years 
to run your pulpits on nervous force alone, unsup- 



THEIR NECESSITY AND VALUE. 279 

ported and unsustained by muscular power. The 
experiment is a failure. The number of dyspeptic, 
of consumptive, of broken - down pastors, of men 
obliged to retire from active ministerial labor at an 
age when they should be in their most glorious prime, 
proves this. This has been brought about by over- 
work, and also by a class of miserable " traditions " 
which have put a premium on narrow-chested and 
shrivelled-skinned men. In many country parishes 
of New England ten years ago, " consumption " and 
" spirituahty " were synonymous terms. If the minis- 
ter was blessed with an unnatural paleness of counte- 
nance, an interesting stoop in the shoulders, and a 
suggestive cough, he was regarded as a close student ; 
"A man who works very hard at his sermons ; one of 
the ripest scholars of the country, sir, I assure you ; " 
and a dozen colleges, as unknown to the great world 
of influence as himself, contended for the honor of 
making him a doctor of divinity. Our theolog}' has 
been affected by this state of things. Views of God 
are notoriously influenced by the state of the health. 
A dyspeptic sermon is as easily detected as a heavy 
horse. Our thoughts, our conceptions, our imagina- 
tions, are largely shaped and colored by our physical 
conditions. A sick man sees God through sickly 
conditions of mind ; a star^dng man, through fantas- 
tic visions ; a man depressed in spirits, as a person 
with dim sight sees a star, shorn of its beams. Xo 
correct theology could ever come out of convents. 
The Bible, from beginning to end, is the work of out- 
door men. Moses, from the time when his parents 



280 MINISTERIAL VACATIONS: 

put him on the waters in the wicker-boat to the time 
when he passed from the crest of a mountain into 
heaven, was a child of Nature. Joshua, David, the 
twelve disciples, Christ himself, all were outdoor men. 
Adam lived principally in the country; and John 
saw heaven in vision while camping out on the Isle 
of Patmos. God never chose a diseased organization 
to be a channel of communication with the race. 
Those who were to be his interpreters to mankind 
have always been stout, healthy men ; men of toil ; 
men who lived simply, in accordance with the great 
law of Nature. The reason is not hidden from us. 
As the lenses of a telescope must be smooth, free from 
irregularities, properly shaped, and undimmed by 
moisture, that it may 3'ield a true view of star and 
sun ; so the mind that would truly reflect God must 
be in the highest possible condition. A great many 
men have thought they saw God, when, in fact, they 
saw nothing but the fancies of a diseased organiza- 
tion deified. 

There are scores of men in the pulpits of New Eng- 
land personally known to me, and hundreds of oth- 
ers unknown to me, upon the continuance, I will not 
say of whose life, but upon the continuance of wh«se 
health, vast interests depend. I pray you to note that 
it is not the presence of a desire to be useful, but of 
an ability to give that desire practical expression, 
which makes these men useful to God and man. 
Never was there a time when the great Captain need- 
ed so many soldiers at the front, and so few in the 
hospital, as now. Never was there a time when his 



THEIR NECESSITY AXD VALUE. 281 

followers should so closely attend to the ecoDomv of 
moral forces as to-day. The churches cannot afford 
to lose their pastors at fifty-six : they cannot afford 
to have them lose half their powers at forty-five. 
There is a vast amount of work in these vineyards 
that young men can never do. Youth has its ener- 
gies, it facilities of expression, its efficient enthusi- 
asms ; but, on the other hand, there is a wisdom, a 
sagacity, a consecration, an influence, which can come 
only with years. A ministry composed over-largely 
of young men, must, in the very nature of things, lack 
certain needed elements of power required by the 
Master. Every soldier of Christ should grow gray 
in the blessed service, and die at last on the picket- 
line. I know what it is to stand by a coffin in which 
lay half the intellectual force of a neigliborhcod, cut 
off forever in premature death ; I know Vvdiat it is 
to bury a man around whom the interests of a church 
and community were twined as vines around a trellis ; 
and, when the man went down, he was literally buried 
beneath the wreck and ruins of what in life he had 
loved and fostered. Above such graves, and beside 
such coffins, I have stood Avith a weight upon my 
spii*its that required my utmost fortitude to sustain. 
And I believe that many pastors in this and other 
cities, and all up and down through the country, are 
being hurried, by the dire conditions of their pastoral 
service, to just such coffins and just such graves. 

If you say, " Why do they overwork ? " I respond, 
They cannot do otherwise. This is the way it works. 
A good friend, perhaps a dozen of you, having con- 



282 MINISTEEIAL YACATIOKS: 

stituted 3^ourselves a committee of visitation, and 
prompted by jour friendship, come to me, and say, 
" Mr. Murray, you are working too hard ; you must 
hold up." Well, I hold up. I sleep more, and think 
less, and, as the result, come to the desk on the next 
sabbath with a sermon less carefully put together, 
less accurate in analysis, poorer in expression. In 
brief, it is unmistakably below my average. You are 
aghast. Perhaps you have brought a friend to hear 
me. You half apologize to him, and say, " That is the 
poorest sermon I ever heard Mr. Murray preach." 
Every one says so. The next sabbath and the next 
bring the same experience ; and you begin to shake 
your heads, and say in whispers one to another, " Well, 
well, this is pretty poor preaching our pastor is giv- 
ing us lately ; isn't it ? I tell you what, it won't do." 
I tell you that Americans are pitiless in their criti- 
cisms of public men. They detect instantly, and re- 
sent as an imposition, any departure from the line of 
average excellence. The archer that misses the tar- 
get three times in succession can never shoot in re- 
spectable company again. Boston forgives any thing 
sooner than intellectual slovenliness. 

We stand upon the threshold of summer. The 
pavements begin to burn with heat, and the gutters 
to assault the nose with noisome smells. We are 
approaching that season when terror walketh by night, 
and pestilence wasteth at noonday. I exhort all of 
you who can to get out of the city. Your counting- 
rooms will soon be like ovens, and your streets like 
furnaces. Accommodate your business to the neces- 



THEIR NECESSITY AND VALUE. 283 

sities of your condition. Money is not the only object 
of life. Walk leisurely ; think leisurely. The en- 
gineer puts on the brakes, and slows up, when the 
boxes begin to smoke. He says, " Life is worth more 
than the time-table. I will land every passenger safe- 
ly at the depot if I am an hour beliind the running- 
time." You applaud him ; and yet some of you are 
making preparations to run your energies at full 
pressure the summer through. Tested by the lowest 
standard of success, you are in error. The man whose 
brain is hot, whose blood is fevered, whose stomach is 
soured and weakly, is the man who will blunder in 
his calculation. If I were in business, I would never 
have any but healthy men for partners. I would not 
trust my fortune to the judgment of a person vvho 
could not eat with a relish, and sleep soundly. Dys- 
peptic men are worthless in a business-concern, save 
as ornaments; and they are rather questionable orna- 
ments ! You will all make more money in eleven 
months, if you will take one for rest, than by keeping 
steadily at work during the entire twelve. I pra}^ 3'ou, 
therefore, friends, take each of you, this year, a vaca- 
tion. Go to the village where 3^ou were born, to the old 
ancestral farm where you toiled when young ; revive 
the sweet and sacred memories of your earher days ; 
and, standing at the very point where your aspira- 
tions and efforts began, recall the mercies of God to 
you during all the years of your life since. Go to " 
the sea-shore, to the mountains, to the wilderness ; go 
anywhere where you can forget your cares and cast 
aside your burdens. Eat, sleep, and play like boys. 



284 MINISTERIAL VACATIONS: 

Let the oicl, old nurse, Nature, — the one mother 
of us all, who never scolded us when we stole her 
cherries, never upbraided us when we waded her 
fish-pools and poached on her preserves ; the dear old 
mother that never sickens and never dies, — take you 
to her bosom again ; and you will return to the city 
hap])ier and healthier for the embrace. 

All me, how life grinds the grit into us I how like 
a vampire it sucks the blood out of our veins ! and, 
instead of standing in beauty and vigor at sixty, we 
lean heavily, with wrinkled hands and colorless faces, 
upon the staff. Will there be no let-up to this con- 
stant and fearful strain on heart and brain to which 
all Americans are now subject? Must we all die be- 
fore our time ? Must compliance Avith the condi- 
tions of success in business and professional life, in 
our country, always mean slow suicide ? I submit, 
friends, that, sooner or later, there must be a change. 
Flesh and blood cannot endure it. As one standing 
in the very centre of the current, barely able to keep 
his feet by reason of the pressure, I lift my voice in 
protest against the custom of the times. Speaking 
for the clerg3% I speak for thousands of overworked 
men. Ambitious, zealous, consecrated, — some of 
them too poor, others too proud, to stop, — they are 
being pressed by the customs of the age beyond en- 
durance. An unreasonable expectation is goading 
them to retirement or the grave. The public demand 
that the clergyman must be a scholar, and refuse him 
the leisure and appliances on v/hich scholarship can 
alone thrive. He must be a philosopher without the 



THEIR NECESSITY AND VALUE. 285 

seclusion tliat pliilosopliy loves. He must match tlie 
best orators of the Ijxeum, and 3-et set the result of 
four clays' labor over against the result of four months 
of careful preparation. To even approximate this, 
he must be a phj'sical and mental athlete. Perfec- 
tion in all the conditions of success can alone insure 
it. I insist that the churches shall bear in mind that 
their pastors have bodies ; that they are subject to all 
the conditions of physical and mental exhaustion ; and 
that, by generous and selfish considerations alike, 
they are urged to provide them with every facility 
needed to keep them strong and robust. 

And now, my people, — mine by the election of 
your preference, by the bestowment of your love, by 
the blessed exchange of sympathies, and the compact 
of a most glorious hope, — let me, before I depart 
from you for a season, thank you for the generous 
provisions you have made, since my first coming 
among you, for my health and happiness. You have 
made me rich in facilities of culture ; jou have fenced 
me from the annoyances of a too-limited support ; you 
have made my cup to run over. Your generosity has 
constrained me to be generous. I have been like a 
fountain, that holds and yields forth only what is 
poured into it. We know not what shall be ; but the 
past can never be taken from us ; it will remain in 
memory like a great sea when it reveals its vast ex- 
panse beneath the fall-orbed moon, and the murmur 
of its motion rises like a ceaseless psalm. It shall be 
heard in recollection until that hour when we go 



286 MINISTERIAL VACATIONS. 

down and stand upon the shore of a wider sea, and 
launch our barks upon it, and sail forth upon its 
waters until we reach the farther marge, where w^e 
will land, and, to the music of a grander psalm, build 
our everlasting mansions. 



SABBATH MORJflMG, SEPT. S, 1871. 



SERMON. 



TOPIC. -PERSONAL RELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO CHRIST. 
** Christ in you, the hope of GiiORY." — Col. i. 27. 

THE apostle, in the context, is speaking of the 
relation of the Gentiles to the gospel ; and, in 
the clause we have quoted as our text, he alludes dis- 
tinctly to the relation that each individual disciple 
sustains to Christ. And I wish, this morning, to speak 
to you upon this subject, — the personal relation of 
Christians to Christ. The subject maps itself out to 
my mind along these three lines of thought : — 

1. What the believer's relation to Christ is. 

2. The necessity of it. 

3. What its influences are. 

I suggest, to start with, that we, as Christians, have 
more than an external relation to gospel truth, — even 
an internal one. " I do not catch your idea," you say. 
Well, you shall have it, then, illustrated. We have 
an external relation to every truth known to the 
mind. Every truth of astronomy, of science, of art, 
of government, that is known to us, has, by the fact 
of its being known, a certain relation to us. Our 

287 



288 EELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO OHEIST. 

knowledge has connected us with it ; made it, in a cer- 
tain sense, ours. Thus knowledge unites me to all 
that my mind apprehends. There is a relation be- 
tween it and myself such as did not exist previous to 
my apprehension of it. This is what I call the exter- 
nal relation a man may sustain to truth, — the relation 
of knowledge, of intellectual apprehension, of mental 
discernment. Such is the relation which thousands 
have to the truth of Scripture. Intellectually they 
believe it. They have a connection with Christianity, 
and yet are not Christians. They take the Bible very 
much as tlie ice takes the sun. They give it a surface- 
reception : they take it upon themselves, not into 
themselves. But the Christian takes the truth as it 
is in Christ, not as the ice, but as the earth, takes the 
sun, — into himself. His connection with it is not 
an external, but an internal^ a responsive connection. 
When the sun comes creeping up the eastern sky in 
winter, how coldly he is received I The earth gives 
no greeting ; makes no response as he approaches. 
His beams can send no thrill along the ice ; can start 
no pulsation amid the snow ; can quicken no energy 
in the leafless trees ; can bring no flush to the face 
of the sky. He shines in vain, because his rays elicit 
no response, quicken no germinant power. And yet 
the ice and snow and trees and sky have a relation to 
the sun, even in midwinter ; but it is not a warm, 
lively relation, but a cold and lifeless one, — an exter- 
nal relation only. So it is with many touching gospel 
truth. It shines upon them ; but it stirs no response 
in their hearts : it sheds itself down upon them ; but 



EELATION OF CHEISTIAKS TO CHRIST. 289 

they give nothing back to it : it brings them out of 
darkness, even as the sun brings the ice out of the 
gloom of night ; but they keep their fixed, frozen, 
insensible state still. Their relation to it is a mere 
external, unsympathetic, accidental relation. But 
consider the sun when he comes wheeling his way 
back from the south in the glad spring-season. How 
the earth hails him each morning with a greeting 
Avarmer and sweeter at each repetition ! The ice re- 
pents of its coldness, and weeps its iciness away ; the 
snow hurries along in rivulets, as if glad to lose its 
own life in ministering to others : the trees lose 
their rigidity, and no longer resist the breezes, but 
yield coquettishly to them : every thing seems com- 
pliant. And how powerful the sun is ! How the 
earth-pulses beat at his coming ! How the ground 
thrills and heaves with up-pushing growth ! How 
the grasses multiply themselves ! and the flowers — 
how they bud and blossom ! The leaves thicken along 
the landscape, and the earth hails the sun in its 
wealth, of overflowing life. It is true, the earth 
would be nothing without the sun : but how it glori- 
fies him ! how sweetly it responds to his solicitation ! 
and how it pays him back for all his ministrations to it ! 
Its relation to him, you see, friends, is far other than 
it was in winter. It is now an internal, a vital, a re- 
sponsive relation, — a relation powerful in its effects, 
and beautiful in its results. And so, when Christ 
comes up in all the glory and warmth of his love, and 
stands over a man, and in a thousand convictions and 
ten thousand promptings sheds himself down upon 



290 RELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO CHEIST. 

him, and the man opens his nature to him, and receives 
him, he is quickened in all the forces of his nature. 
He begins to flower out morally, and be clothed upon 
in beauty. His relation to Christ is no longer an 
external one ; it is no longer inefficient : it is an 
internal, a vital, and a vitalizing relation. He does 
more than apprehend truth : he loves it. Heart, hand, 
eye, every sense and faculty, are capable of new and 
happy sensations. Christ is no longer afar off, a being 
to discuss and speculate about : he is in him as tlie 
leaven is in the loaf, — a power whose workings are 
felt, and whose effects are seen. 

There, friends, all of jou, even the youngest, must 
understand the difference between having an external 
and an internal relation to truth, especially the truth 
which is in Jesus. The distinction is a very broad 
one. The query springs to my lips, and I put it to 
you in the candor of sympathy, Which of the two 
relations do you personally sustain to your Saviour ? 
Is he any thing more to you than a being whom your 
intellect accepts ? Is he dear to you as one deserving 
your love, both from what he is in himself, and also 
from w^hat he has done for you ? Have you received 
him into your heart as one to be treasured and kept ? 
as one from whom you cannot be separated unless 
you die ? Does your imagination picture him warmly, 
or coldly? Do you see him as a being afar off, dim, 
unsubstantial, ghostly ? or as one verily with you, 
whose face you can see, whose hand you can take, 
and upon whose bosom you can lean ? Ah me ! there 
was a time when Christ was loved; when the faith 



BELATION OF CHEISTIAXS TO CHEIST. 291 

of the Cliurcli had some warmth and glow in it ; 
when creeds and doctrines were valued onl}^ as helps 
to come to and take hold of the person of the Lord ; 
when men and women died for him as the loyal have 
died for an absent but beloved king : but we have 
taken the passion out of religion by making it mean 
adherence to a set of dogmas, rather than what it 
should mean, — adherence to the blessed Person. 
Sin is counted nothing but breaking certain rules 
which cannot feel the severance ; whereas sin is most 
ugly in us, because, if I ma}^ so speak, it breaks the 
heart of Christ. It is a personal insult, and gives a 
personal wound, to Him who died for us, and hurts 
him like a stab. And this is what is meant, as I con- 
ceive, when the Scriptures speak of some who " cru- 
cify Christ afresh." For you should remember that 
he is a conscious and sensitive being. He observes 
our conduct daily. He is easily "grieved in his 
heart." He is not so superior as to be unaffected by 
your treatment. He is your Elder Brother. 

My hearer, listen to me. I seek with more than 
ordinary earnestness to win you over to this view of 
regarding your Saviour, because from it alone, as I 
think, can you receive that strength and consolation, 
which more than once, in the days ahead of you, 
you will need. The truth I am expanding and seek- 
ing to inculcate is a generic one. It is not a dogma :^ 
it is a principle. This is my position, — that an inti- 
mate, internal, loving, and vital relation must always 
be a personal one. You cannot love a creed, a con- 
fession of faith, a philosophy, a text of Scripture, or 



292 RELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO CHRIST. 

all these put together into an institution or a school, 
any more than you can love a shade of color or a 
sound in the air. Love is given only to a living, 
personal being. Recall the sweetest passage of joui 
life, — that for which jou would die sooner than sur- 
render the memory of it ; an hour of revelation which 
opened up your nature to 3-our own eyes, and made 
you for the first time know yourself ; a moment of 
swift recognition of a want unfelt before, of a fulness 
never till then supplied, — recall, I say, the noblest 
friendship 3'ou have ever felt, the deepest, hohest love 
you have ever known, and tell me, if, in the centre of 
the recollection, there is not a face, even as a picture 
is within the borders of a frame, — a face that is never 
hidden, a voice that is never hushed, a form that is 
never absent. Have you met any thing in all your 
past like this ? If so, can you disconnect the mem- 
ory from the person of whom the recollection is a 
part, even as the halo is a part of the saintly face it 
enshrines ? Can jou say, " I loved his virtue, his 
charity, his patience, his talents " ? No : your heart 
gives the lie to jouv anatysis, and, true to its in- 
stincts, murmurs, " I only know that I loved the 
man." And so, the world over, the relation of love 
is a personal relation. An element, a characteristic, 
cannot awaken a passion. " If ye love we," said 
Christ, "ye will keep my words." Nobler, purer, bet- 
ter than all he published or revealed was himself. 

It is only when thus regarded ^that Christianity has 
any self-sacrificing element in it. Bud love is full of 
service, full of self-denial, for the object of its affec- 



EELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO CHRIST. 293 

tion. "We all know from experience what a mother's 
love is, — the toils, the labors, the patience, that it 
represents. But there is a love greater than this 
even, equal in service, deeper in its fervor ; and what 
it will not dare, what it will not endure, the Author 
of it alone knows. Let two be united b}' it, each 
finding in the other the ansvv er of their best prayer, 
the supply of their deepest social, mental, and spirit- 
ual need ; each fitted to the other like a noble word 
to a sweet note, and hence a mutual delight. Such 
a love is invincible against every combination of a 
changeful life : it will give up home, parents, coun- 
try, and friends ; it will accept poverty with glad- 
ness, and regard happiness cheap purchased at such 
a price ; it will risk life itself in order to keep the 
integrity of its faithfulness, and die rather than fore- 
go its adherence. This is not poetrj' ; at least, if it 
is, it is the poetry, not of fiction, but of real life. The 
old romance of human nature has not wholly died 
out ; and its starry faith has not yet shaded' its re- 
splendent orb. Love, to-day, is as full of self-surren- 
der, of service, of patience which hungers and speaks 
not, which suffers and makes no sound, as it ever 
was ; yea, fuller. 

It is in vain, friends, for men to strive to build up 
a religion that has not as its centre, and source of in- 
spiration, some person to love. This is the pivot 
around which all faith, all service, all hope, circle 
and swing with an ever-widening circumference, — 
a circumference which sweeps tribe after tribe, race 
after race, and soul after soul, within the circle of its 



294 RELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO CHRIST. 

charmed line. What would Papacy be without its 
pope ? what Mahometanism without its prophet ? what 
Christianity without the Christ ? Tenets, dogmas, 
creeds, speculations, and theories, — these make, in- 
deed, the form and outline of a sun : but, alas ! they 
cannot supply it with beams ; they cannot give to it 
that light which quickens, and that warmth which 
brings the germinant forces of holiness forward. These 
make a theologian, a philosopher, a reformer ; but they 
cannot make a Christian or a saint. 

My people, do any of you know a person for whom 
and with whom you are willing to bear shame ? Do 
you know of one whom you honor and reverence so 
much, that to hear him spoken lightly of and reviled 
is a gi eater pain than to be reviled yourself? If you 
know of such a person, your love is indeed great, and 
you supply me with an illustration. Take away that 
dear one's name, and in its place write " Jesus." Do 
you know of one whose presence is better than 
wealth ? whose presence would make a desert like a 
bower, and the solitude of a wilderness cheerful ? — 
one so dear to you, that proximity means happiness, 
and separation misery ? in respect to whom, so much 
do you love him, you can, without exaggeration, say, 
" With him I have all, without him I have nothing " ? 
If such a one you know, then him also do you indeed 
love with a love as bright and everlasting as the stars. 
Take away his name, and write in its stead " My Sa- 
viour." Or once more let me inquire. Do you know 
of one (I know not who can follow me in this ; for it 
is a deed so rare and saintly, that, being done, it lives 



RELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO CHRIST. 295 

with the immortality of letters), — do you know of 
one, I say, for whom you could die ? Do you know of 
one so generous, so grand, so dear, that you would 
stand at the door of his dungeon, your mouth filled 
with only one prayer, — to take his place, or at least to 
share his doom ? Then have you touched the height 
of heroic devotion ; for He toward whom I ask you 
to feel like this has said, " Greater love hath no man 
than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend." 
Do you see what such a love for Christ begets ? Note 
as I enumerate a few only of the results. I mention, 
first, service; second, great grief in view of any sin, 
because offensive to him ; third, joy. Such a love 
revels and delights ; it is full of song and exultation ; 
it deems its lot the happiest possible, and is never 
done wondering at its good fortune. Here, then, 
springing out of this love for a personal Christ, are 
these three results, — work for Christ, repentance 
for sin as done against Christ, and joy in Christ. 

Now, friends, you see that Christ is not in us by 
reason of our having accepted a certain set of formu- 
lated ideas, but by reason of a change wMch has come 
over our feelings towards him. It is not because you 
have believed a given number of doctrines that you 
are a Christian, but because you have estabhshed, 
through faith, a personal relation with Christ himself. 
All our views of Christ, all doctrines that are worth 
knowing, spring out of this felt personal relation to 
the Saviour, as flowers out of an upheaved and 
shapely mound in which they were planted. What 
you should cultivate, therefore, is not knowledge of 



296 RELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO CHRIST. 

his doctrines so much as a closer intimacy in your 
heart with him. It is not the truth which he pub- 
lished that you are to have in you so much as Him 
who is the very author of truth. Your obligation as 
Christians springs, not from your relation to the cove- 
nant of this church, but from your relation with Him 
with whom you have covenanted. It is not the law 
you are to obey, but the law-maker ; and by him, and 
not by it, are you at last to be judged. Through type 
and symbol, through prophecy and revelation, through 
commandment and doctrine, your eye should cease- 
lessly seek to find the person of your Saviour. It is 
not the altar, but the priest that ministers at it, and 
gives to it its sanctity ; it is not the throne, but the 
king upon it; it is not the doctrine of the atone- 
ment, but the blessed Being that made it by his own 
sufferings and death, — that should receive your rev- 
erence, your homage, and your love. O men and 
women without a Saviour ! I seek not to convert you 
to any set of doctrines this morning; I seek not to 
make you read this text or that as I read it : I only 
seek to make you feel to-day that 3^ou have a friend 
in heaven ; I only crave that you might feel what I 
have felt when tempted, when oppressed, when set 
upon by troubles not a few, — that One there is who 
saw me, who strengthened me, and who would redeem 
me in my hour of death. Men care little about doc- 
trines when they come to die. Some hand to clasp, 
some voice to cheer, some look of love to soothe, some 
faithful breast on which to lie, — for this human- 
ity cries in the sharp agony. Guide-books are good 



RELATION OF OHEISTIANS TO CHRIST. 297 

for cities ; but when you thread the wilderness, or 
climb the dizzy height where hangs the poised ava- 
lanche which the stroke of an alpenstock can start 
from its precarious balance, then man needs more 
than a guide-book: he needs a guide. O wander- 
ers in life's wilderness ! O climbers along crags 
which beetle over chasms unmeasurable I have you 
a guide ? You will go down to your homes and the 
places of your abode, and life will claim you in its 
duties, and my words will be forgotten. I know the 
lot of speaking, and the inevitable fortune of utter- 
ance. Against the swift multitude of your thoughts 
and your diversions to-morrow my words will be like 
feathers blown out of sight by the strong winds. You 
will remember where you heard them, and no more ; 
perchance not even this. Be it so. I build my hope 
on this, — that some impression has been made which 
will enter among and become a part of the needed 
impressions of your life ; some seed-thought planted, 
which, hidden now, will find the light, and bud and 
blossom on some future day. 

This personal relation to Christ produces in us a 
certain result of which the text makes mention, — 
hope. Love is always hopeful : its faith in itself 
makes it so. In its own thought it is immortal ; and 
hence the hope of immortality is in it. It uses this 
world if permitted, but builds the foundation of its 
permanent happiness in the world to come. In this 
hope it is content to endure all things here, confident 
that it shall have all things in the hereafter. Its face 
is like that of Evangeline, — patient, wistful, with a 



298 KELATIO^r OF CHRISTIANS TO CHRIST. 

look that is directed upward and beyond. IMemory 
to it is sweet ; but it does not live in remembrance. 
Possession is precious ; but the present never bounds 
the line of its aspiration. Its musings, its aspirations, 
its dreams, are of a wider, a fuller, and an endless 
future. This is true of love in its best estate aud 
happiest earthly condition. What must it be, then, 
when cramped, when separated from the object of its 
desire, when denied every thing but the joy of its 
own faithfulness ? What, then, can it find in the past 
but emptiness ? what in the present but deprivation ? 
How glorious and dear the future is to it now ! what 
beautif al possibilities are in it I what divine certain- 
ties of union and life lie ahead 1 It is like a bird over- 
taken by night when far from its mate and nest. It 
longs for the morning, for the ecstasy of the swift 
passage, and the meeting in the warm sunshine. 
Some of you, at least, know the depth of the truth of 
these Avords of Christ, " Where your treasure is, there 
will your heart be also ; " and you know how the 
heart aches, and how strong the longing within your 
bosom is, at times, to go hence, and be where your 
desires elect. 

"But no one has ever taught me to love Christ 
so," you say. " It seems queer to hear you talk as 
if he is a real being, — a being to be loved, and longed 
for as for some dear, absent, earthly friend. I do not 
understand it." I understand it, my hearer. You 
have been taught to believe in creeds and doctrines 
more than in him the personal Saviour. The bulk 
of your religious instruction has been of what he said 



KELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO CHEIST. 299 

and did when visible to the senses of men on the 
earth. You have been instructed in the knowledge 
of words ; made wise in definition, and analysis of 
terms and phrases. You have been made to feel that 
your hope of heaven depends upon your acceptance 
of a set of pubhshed ideas, and not upon your per- 
sonal relation to God through Christ. The articles 
of faith have been presented to you as if a certain 
degree of competence in confession brings you up to 
the level of the needed holiness ; and the result is 
(I do not say that it has been reached intelligently 
by you, or forwarded in you designedly by others), — 
the result is, I say, that Christ, in his personal relation 
to you as a hving, loving being, has been pushed almost 
out of sight, and made to seem unreal, fictitious, and 
imaginary. Your works have been in the form of a 
service prompted by a sense of duty, and not in the 
form of an offering impelled by love. Sin has been 
only the transgression of a rule, and not an offence 
put upon God ; and your joy is found in the num- 
ber of things done or left undone, and not in the 
growing consciousness that you are accepted of Him 
whom your soul loveth. The whole drift of the in- 
struction you have received has been to make you a 
theologian, and not a saint ; and this, I believe, is, to 
a large extent, true of the entire modern Church, It 
is unconsciously substituting knowledge for piety, 
and striving to feel an impossible love for an impossi- 
ble Christ ; for if religion does not mean a personal 
relation to a personal being, then love is impossible. 
Suffer one other suggestion. A hope that is built 



300 RELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO CHEIST. 

on acceptance of the trnth, on degrees of knowl- 
edge and obedience, on sincerity of purpose or effort, 
and not on the merit and intercessions of a personal 
Kedeemer, is, and must be, a timid and inconstant 
feeling. There is a reason why ignorant Christians 
are always hopeful. It is not because they have less 
knowledge, but because, having less, their faith is less 
diverted from its proper and sublime object. They lit- 
erally know nothing but " Jesus, and him crucified ; " 
and on him they rely with an unquestioning faith. 
He is their all-in-all : he, and he alone, is their hope 
of glory. And what a hope theirs is ! I have seen 
such die. They were poor, unlettered, destitute of 
ideas ; they had had no traffic in the great com- 
merce of the world's thought ; it were easy for wit 
to mock them, and for culture to pity their igno- 
rance : but they died as the sun comes out of an 
eclipse, their natui^es revealing great glory as they 
moved from behind the shadow of their mortality. 
No crying out, no shrinking back as from an untried 
fate, no knitting up of courage as for a mighty effort, 
no grasping of mortal hands as if for help, no swift 
and anxious dialogue with the onlooking pastor, no 
doubt and trembling when they came to die ; but 
with hands folded for rest, with eyes uplifted to 
heaven and full of joy, with countenances lighted 
as is the face when it answereth to the face of a 
friend, with a sigh like the last long breath of weari- 
ness passing into sleep, they gently breathed their 
lives out in the arms of Jesus. He was no myth to 
them. They saw him, not through form and cere- 



RELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO CHRIST. 301 

mony, tliroiigh type and symbol, through theologio 
treatise and verbal memorizing of the catechism : 
they saw him as the patient sees the physician ; as 
the lamb sees the Eastern shepherd when it lies in 
the folds of his vestment : they saw him as the up- 
lifted eye of love sees the face of answering love 
above it ; and seeing this, doubt being unknown in 
the perfection of their faith, fear being cast out by 
the perfectness of their love, they closed their eyes 
as flowers close at the setting of the sun, and gently 
" fell on sleep." 

And now, you who have followed me with patience, 
only dimly catching at the thought, perhaps, — for I 
have found it impossible to bring my thought out, 
and make the division-line of its varied shadings dis- 
tinct and true, — you who have dimly caught, I say, 
at what I meant, and seen the bright, glad world of 
faith and love which I have not revealed, but only 
suggested, — a world of love for the most lovely, of 
faith in the most faithful, of joy in Him who was 
once most sorrowful, but is now most blessed, — 
make your relation to the Saviour a personal one. 
Let him, in all your thought, be near and dear to you. 
You know what he expects. Such love as his for 
you always expects much. If you love father or 
mother more than him, you are not worthy of him. 
Remember that love has but one line or rule in giv- 
ing; it is that by which it receives. And nobler, 
purer, sweeter (I will not say more lasting, for both 
shall hve forever), but tenderer and more fervid, than 
love of father and mother, has been, and is, Christ's 



302 RELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO CHRIST. 

love fcr you. Are you sick? — his eyes shall keep 
their watching when the mother's, through weariness, 
close in sleep. Are you shut out from counsel ? — go 
to a love that respects all human secrets, and a wis- 
dom competent to guide. Are you heavy-hearted, 
weighed down, oppressed? — "Come unto me," he 
says, " and I will give you rest." Have you found 
your ignorance by erring, and your weakness by many 
a fall? — go to Him who knows your frame, and re- 
membeis that you are dust. Have you sinned ? — go 
to a mercy whose forgiveness a thief receives, and a 
murderer cannot exhaust. If, on the other hand, you 
are happy; if any thing sweet and fragrant has come 
to yoa; if your soul has been enriched by what man 
could not give ; if you have any thing so precious to 
you, that it connects both v/orlds, puts one in commu- 
nication with the other, and makes both blessed, — 
then take it as coming direct from Him, warm and 
sweet with the recent touch of his all-bestowing palm. 
Oh that the glory and warmth of the orient might be 
seen and felt in our western sky ! Oh that the majesty 
of the palm, — emblem of stateliness in growth, and 
of victory when strewn, — and the wealth of the 
pomegranate, and the rich beauty of the Eastern lil- 
ies, might be again suggested to her poets when they 
sing of the Church ! How shall we call her more 
the Bride of Christ, when so much of speculation, 
and so little of love, is in her bosom? When will 
the old rich glow come back to her features, the full 
pulse to her veins, and all that life of personal affec- 
tion for her Lord which filled her mouth with songs 



EELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO CHRIST. 303 

when at her work, and made her faithfuhiess unto 
death a wonder to those that could not comprehend, 
and hated the love that made infidelity impossible, 
and martyrdom a joy ? I know not ; but this I know, 
that this will never be until the personal relation be- 
tween each disciple and Christ be taught, felt, and 
ardently believed. 

O Love! thy feet are beautiful upon the moun- 
tains and in the highways of human life. Thy face 
is lovely on the throne, and not less lovely at the 
peasant's humble door. A house with thee becomes a 
home ; and a dungeon, if thou art in it, is not utterly 
desolate. Thy worth is known by those who have 
thee ; and by those who have thee not art thou es- 
teemed. Beautiful art thou at the marriage-feast, 
with mirth and laughter, the voluptuous swell of 
music, and in rooms whose slumberous air is heavy 
with the scent of orange-flowers ; beautiful, also, art 
thou in chambers of happy birth, when motherhood 
is born with the first-born's breath, and she who giv- 
eth birth is born again ; beautiful, too, as we can 
testify, when on thy knees beside the dying-couch, 
with clasped hands and flooded eyes, thou givest thy 
farewell kiss to lips that nevermore will give the an- 
swering Idss this side of heaven : but never art thou so 
much thyself, never so gracious, so like thy Father, 
as when thou dost unite in an eternal bond the heart 
of sinful man unto his God. Come then, to all this 
people, in thy most beautiful shape, clothed like a 
vestal, and supremely pure ; breathe out thy breath 
upon us ; quicken each holy sense ; create in us the 



304 RELATION OF CHRISTIANS TO CHRIST. 

deathless yearning, the undying faith, the changeless 
hope : for by thy power alone will Christ, revealed, 
experienced, as love by love, be formed in us, " the 
hope of glory." 



SABBATH MOHJVIJVG, SEPT. 10, 1871. 



SERMOK 



SUBJECT.-DEATH A GAIN. 



'To DIE IS GATN." — Phil. J. 21. 



AS a strain of music, mellowed by distance and 
the moist evening-air in summer through which 
it passes, and which it fills until the darkness beats 
with the melody, dies out, and is not heard for a while, 
but anon is heard again, as one sees a ship ;far off at 
sea, — a little speck of sound, which comes swiftly on 
and enlarges itself until it moves along the air in ma- 
jestic resonance ; so has it been with me touching 
this theme, — the gain of dying. It came to me like 
music, grave, solemn, and sweet, with here and there 
a lively, quick-running, exultant tone, as when the 
player in the midst of some majestic movement of the 
lower chords flashes his hand along the higher keys. 
It came, and died away; and I have waited vainly un- 
til now to hear the dying in some rising strain. At 
last it comes. I catch the well-known cliord again, — 
the same sublime, upheaving movement of thought, 
of hope, of impulse : and as the eagle about to soar 
seeks and finds and puts himself upon a column of 



306 DEATH A GAIN. 

uplifting air, and is by its upheaving power borne up 
and up until he finds the height he had in mind at 
starting, the unruf&ed calm 'of upper heaven, and 
the majestic, unclouded orb ; so I, a thing of flesh, 
whose home is amid shadows, and not above the fog, 
seek now this mighty, uplifting theme, and put my 
mind upon it, asking only that it may lift me to the 
upper realm of faith, w^hose deep tranquilhty is un- 
fretted by currents of earthly thought, and fi.lled for- 
ever with the light of the glory of the Lord. 

I am to speak of the social gain of dying. My dis- 
course is based upon this thought, — that as a social 
being, as one born to love and be loved, as one fond 
of companionship and intercourse with his kind, man 
will not lose, but gain, by the experience called 
death. Socially he will be better conditioned out of 
his present body than he is in it. 

To me, death as an event has a twofold signifi.- 
cance. For years, now, I have especially associated 
two ideas with it. The first of these is this : It will 
enlarge the locality of my life. I am, as a family, 
compelled to live in too small a house. I shall be 
glad when I can move out of it and have more room. 
Death will give me this opportunity. It will pass me 
to a nobler residence. Beyond the grave I shall not 
be cramped. My life will not be centred to one 
spot. I shall get that wisdom which comes from 
wide journeyings, and intermingling with many. This 
will be a gain. 

The other thought is this : Death will be the signal 
of my passing from a lower to a higher stage of exer- 



DEATH A GAIN. SOT 

cise and development. Mortality has its motives ; but 
they are not such as immortality will have. Earth 
has its duties ; but they are tame, indeed, beside the 
ministries which heaven imposes. The character of 
our Avork affects us, and man is often small becauso 
his labor is ignoble : but, when death comes, we shall 
be dignified with nobler service ; we shall be developed 
along a higher range of effort ; we shall all have the 
bearing and vesture of princes when we serve in the 
King's house. 

If you say, " How know you this ? the future is 
unknown," I reply, The future is, in truth, unknown, 
and hence largely uncertain; but that there is a 
realm peopled with life ahead of us, we feel and are 
assured. Nor are its laws and privileges entirely hid- 
den. That it is populous, we know ; for multitudes 
were there before the birth of man, and multitudes 
are daily passing into it. The names of all the living 
are found among the dead. Each household is repre- 
sented. They go singly, in couples, in groups, in cir- 
cles, in clouds, like birds that move on separately in 
calm, and anon are blown along in crowds by the 
great winds. There is not a spot upon the earth 
which has not been the starting-point for some up- 
ward-going spirit. In the lone valley, beneath the 
shade of cypress, the weary and bewildered hunter 
has lain him down and slept ; and, leaving there his 
body on the mosses, himself did journey up out of 
the fog, and make his neighborhood amid the everlast- 
ing stars. From the surf-beaten beach and the white 
terror of underlying reefs, from battle-fields where 



308 DEATH A GAIN. 

life was flung away as if it had no value, from pal- 
ace-couch and cottage-bed, from study and street, 
from every locality beneath that rolling sun, men 
have gone up to God. And all these — the strong, 
the passionate, the loving — took all their powers and 
feelings with them. Upon the smaller the larger life 
was on the instant grafted. They did find their 
growth " in the twinkling of an eye." They were all 
changed as the bud is changed when it blossoms, as 
the sun is changed when it sails out from behind the 
veil of the eclipse. There was no lapse of power, no 
interruption of the faculties, no cessation of thought, 
no ebb to the majestic current of their lives, in death. 
We touch the lowest tide-mark in dying ; and from 
that point our lives know only an eternal flood. 
Tliey went, not shorn, meagre, unattended, but circled 
round about and braced with faculties and powers. 
They took their friendships with them, even as we, 
when journeying to foreign parts, take ours with us, 
and find they thrive even in absence. They took 
their loves into that other world, even as the sun takes 
all his beams at setting with him into another hemi- 
sphere. They took their strength of feeling with 
them, their yearning and their craving, their praj^er 
for fulness, — that hfe-long prayer rising up from out 
our felt emptiness ; the one prayer that God has 
never answered, and may not until we stand in his 
actual presence, behold him as a parted child his re- 
gained father, and so are filled. They took, in brief, 
all that in birth he gave them, and stood before Him 
who made them as he made them, — full men and 
women. 



DEATH A GAIN. 309 

To me the spirit-world is tangible. It is not 
peopled with ghosts and spectres, shadows and out- 
lines of being, but with persons and forms palpable 
to tlie apprehension. Its multitudes are yeritable, its 
society natural, its language audible, its companion- 
ships real, its lores distinct, its activities energetic, its 
life intelligent, its glory discernible : its union is not 
that of sameness, but of yariety brought into moral 
harmony by the great law of love, like notes, which, 
m themselves distinct and different, make, ^rhen com- 
bined, SAveet music. Death will not level and annul 
those countless differences of mind and heart Avliich 
make us individual here. Heaven, in all the mode 
and manner of expression, will abound with personal- 
ity. There will be choice and preference and degrees 
of affinity there. Each intellect will keep its natural 
bias, each heart its elections. Groups there Avill be, 
and circles ; faces, known and unknown, will pass us ; 
acquaintance will thrive on intercourse, and love 
deepen with knowledge ; and the great underlying 
laws of mind and heart prevail and dominate as they 
do here, save in this, — that sin, and all the repellence 
and antagonisms that it breeds, will be unknown, and 
hohness supply in perfect measure the opportunity 
and bond of brotherhood. 

My friends, I speak, not out of Scripture, but out 
of reason and hope, in this ; and yet it may not be 
amiss should thought be quickened in you, and your 
eyes be made somewhat familiar, by gazing through 
even an imperfect medium, with that unvisited land 
toward which the passing of each day, each hour, each 



310 DEATH A GAIN. 

moment even, is surely bringing us. There should 
be, there must be, some settled faith in us upon this 
subject, else who could bear the wrench of separation 
and the sorrows of life ? I shall lie down, I know, in 
death ; but my powers will not decay : for if these 
perish, then do I perish ; for they are of me, and with- 
out them I am not. My body shall know corruption. 
It shall become familiar with the changes of the ele- 
ments of which it is. It shall go back and mingle 
with its native dust. It shall float upon the wind, a 
part of it. It shall take new forms, and feel the heat 
of summer and the touch of frost. It shall dissolve, 
and be not, save as it lives in the changeful round and 
passages of the material world. But I shall never 
change save with the changes of growth, — of addition 
and expansion. Within me is what the dust could 
never make, the dust can never claim, — hppe, feeling, 
impulse, and the strong onsweeping power of thought 
which channels the great universe of mind with the 
movement of an inexhaustible and ever-increasing 
force. This will flow on forever, when worlds have 
perished, and the races that peopled them, in their 
material forms, have passed away. This something 
in me which makes me nobler than the brute ; which 
gives me seat and rank in the great parliament ruled 
by the highest life ; which makes my body but an 
accident, and my stay on earth but as a night which a 
traveller passes at an inn, — this shall never he down, 
I say, with the material form it now ennobles by its 
indwelling; but it shall stand erect, imperishable, a 
marvel of dignity, like that old statue which faced 



DEATH A GAIN. Bll 

wifh lofty and imperturbable mien the east, and from 
whose lips issued music with the rising of every sun. 
Years came and went, and centuries grew apace ; 
tribes perished ; cities rose and fell ; even empires, 
whose boast was their duration, faded : but still the 
statue stood, the same look of chiselled majesty upon 
its face, the same serenity of gaze, and the same audi- 
ble sweetness greeting each dawn through its un- 
touched, unshrivelled, everlasting lips. 

And if I change not, but keep the integrity of my 
being, what shall I lose ? what shall be riven from 
me in death ? Nothing ! I shall be clothed upon, 
not stripped. Enlargement and expansion, not ex- 
traction and diminution, will come to me. And the 
social structure of heaven, as I conceive, so far as it 
relates to man, has for its basis the same powers and 
capacities, the same aptitudes and af&nities, as society 
has here. Indeed, I do not picture the next life so 
vastly unlike the present as many seem to do. The 
good need not, and can onl}^, change by the changes 
of growth. We shall have the same God to adore, 
the same Saviour to praise, and the same Spirit to 
quicken us, as here. Our sphere of service will be 
nobler, our powers larger, our loves deeper and holier, 
the best within us ever in ascendency ; but in what 
else shall the good be different ? All that made life 
sweet, all that made intercourse delightful, all that 
adorned us and added grace and ornament to us, will 
there continue. The change will be in the betterment 
of our condition, in the improvement of our circum- 
Btances, in the increased occasions and opportunities 



312 DEATH A GAIN. 

of our lives, rather than through any revolution in 
ourselves. When I go hence, therefore, I shall take 
all that is dear and precious with me. I shall not go 
forth alone, but girt about with friends. On one side 
Memory will walk, her sensitive face alive with recol- 
lected mercies ; on the other, Hope will precede me, 
her look prophetic of fulness, like the countenance 
of morning when it feels the coming of day. When 
we strike our tents, friends, we shall take all our 
household gods with us. At death we do not begin 
to live a new life, but the old one improved upon, 
enlarged, ennobled. The tune will be on the same 
key; but the volume will be fuller, richer, and the 
melody sweeter. 

I know to whom I am speaking when I say this : I 
am speaking to men and women who have lived and 
suffered, rejoiced and mourned. I know also to what I 
am speaking : I am speaking to that best part of you, 
seldom, if ever, shown to the world, but held up freely 
in the secret of yonr souls before God ; to that in you 
which the earth alone could never elicit, and, if it had 
elicited, would never satisfy. You have not lived 
thoughtlessly. There are seas that ships cannot sail 
with whole canvas ; and there are passages in life from 
which we come forth not as we entered into them. 
The years back of us are full of voices eloquent and 
pathetic. You who have lived long have stood over 
the grave of mau}^ an early dream. Success, when it 
came, was not what you thought it would be ; and even 
that has often been denied you. You have eaten and 
Blept with disappointment. You have watched by the 



DEATH A GAIN. 



313 



couch of many a hope, and seen it fail and die. You 
have buried many a bright expectation, and laid the 
memorial-wreath over many a joy. When, alone by 
yourselves at times, you close your eyes and think, 
these memories become oppressive. Withered gar- 
lands are there, and broken rings, and vases once 
fragrant with flowers, and the white faces of those 
that sleep. It is hard to say farewell to a hope that 
has cheered us ; to unloose the clasp of what seemed 
an undying friendship ; to see a love sail away, and 
sink its white sails in the sea, regardless of our out- 
stretched hands, and white, surf-beaten face. Yet most 
of you, I suppose, at one or another time of your life, 
have stood on that beach, and waded far out into its 
deep sounding waves, and wrung your hands at part- 
ing with what would nevermore come back. And 
yet, to such as are not crazed thereby, such partings 
and memories are not vain. There are things back 
of us, known only to Heaven, which did greatly 
shape our lives. There are faces, and the pressure of 
hands, and snatches of song, and the light of long- 
closed eyes, and the far-distant murmur of solemn 
prayer, which we do treasure choicely and reverently. 
There be those with faith enough to think that by 
and by the old faces will be seen once more, the loved 
voices heard anew, and all lost things will come sail- 
ing back to us, like ships, which, parted by night 
and the swift stroke of tempest, at morning, with sails 
all washed, and fairer than they went, come hurry- 
ing back to anchorage ; and they wait with watching 
for that day, and, like some angel detained from his 



314 DEATH A GAIN. 

companions, sit gazing with wistful eyes steadfastly 
upward and far ahead. 

For one, I sympathize with such. I hold, not from 
mere sentiment and warmth of impulse, but from th.e 
reason of things, and what I know of God, that, some- 
where down the future, we shall meet what we most 
longed for, but did miss in this present life ; and that 
all I prayed for purely — the answer being impossible 
in tliis stateand world — will then and there be given 
me, and I shall put my arms around it, and have it with 
me as mine eternally. Then shall that knowledge 
which I crave, and have not ; for which I search, and 
do not find, — the knowledge of the First Cause, and 
the intricacies of human destiny — be discovered. 
Then shall the mysteries of Providence, which with- 
holds where I should grant, and permits where I 
should deny, be unfolded. Then shall the uneven 
balance, which no lifting of my faith can bring to 
even poise, be accurately adjusted, and I shall see 
why the wicked prosper, and the good decrease. 
Then will the grim, stark mystery of sin, which 
many explain so glibly, but which to me, after all 
my pondering and praying, only looms up as the 
great, ugly, inexplicable /ac'^, which hangs like dread 
eclipse upon the effulgence of universal and other- 
wise apparent love, be explained. Then shall I gain 
what I have lost, and much besides, — even what I 
crave, and have not, — and at last be satisfied. 

No night so long as to endure forever. A dawn 
will come at last, and come in all the flush of gold and 
amber. Beyond the grave, we may not have the or 



DEATH A GAIN. 315 

dering of our lot ; but we shall have great liberty in 
choosing, — even the liberty of the children of God. 
Eternity will bring to the good the opportunity of a 
fresh start. We have all blundered here more than 
we shall there ; for there we shall select and discard 
with a higher intelligence than we saw with here. 
Our companionship will be intuitive, like that of 
purity. We shall mate ourselves with whatever is 
most kindred to us in thought, fibre, and feeling. The 
laws and conditions of eartlily existence, of imperfect 
discernment, end at the grave. When you and I, my 
friends, stand on the shore of that unsailed sea, we 
shall build us new ships : some of us will build differ- 
ently than we did here, and launch them in other 
company. There, too, shall we meet again the loved 
and saintly who have gone before us, from whom 
we parted as love parts with love upon a beach, — with 
lip pressed to lip, and hands slow to unclasp. They 
sailed off and disappeared, and the great waters hid 
them from sight ; but the hearts that waved their 
signals back to us as they receded still beat in love 
for us as ours still swell with love for them : and when 
we, too, have taken boat, and sailed off, and crossed 
the sea of unknown width, whose steady level breaks 
not in wave or crest until it touches heaven, then 
curves in whiteness, and makes endless nausic as it falls, 
— then as we stood on this, and waved our parting love 
to them, so shall we behold tliem standing on the 
farther shore waving their welcoming love to us ; and 
the interrupted intercourse will be renewed, and push 
its lines of love and sympathy out forever. Heaven 



316 DEATH A GAIN. 

would not be heaven to me without its faces, begin- 
ning with His who lifteth the light of his counte- 
nance upon me now day by day, and whose splendor, 
tempered to my eyes, will be then my daily wonder 
and delight down through all the grades of love to 
the lowliest man that lives, for whom, as for an un- 
seen and unmet brother, I have prayed. They must 
all be there, I saj^ — all needed by my heart, as the 
sun needs every object on the earth to elicit its 
warmth; as the earth needs every ray of light to help 
its growth by day, and change its gloom and dread by 
night to splendor. That they will be there I make 
no doubt. Love is of God, and with him it shall live. 
It is the endless music of the universe, the perfume 
that makes the body of the atmosphere which angels 
breathe. The melody shall continue, and the air keep 
its sweet vitality. The world of spirits is populous ; 
and we shall go into numberless companionships when 
we enter it. In it is the great citj^ full of mansions 
built and mansions being builded. They are being 
fitted up and prepared ceaselessly. The city grows 
with the growth of God's plan of redeeming man. 
The space between it and earth is white with the 
passage of spirits passing in. They come pouring into 
it from the dark earth as white doves come streaming 
homeward when chased by tempest, their pure forms 
strongly marked against the black clouds. Thus it is 
being filled and peopled by a " great multitude that no 
man can number." From such beings the play and 
exercise of the affections cannot be separated. You 
cannot conceive of them as not mingling and inter- 



DEATH A GAIN. 317 

changing their loves one for another. A language 
adapted to their wants, to their services, to their ever- 
increasing powers, will be theirs ; and themes too high 
for mortal thought will engage their minds. Nor will 
lesser and sweeter themes be wanting ; for the hap- 
piness of the children will be the joy and pride of the 
all-protecting Father. O friends 1 will it not be gain 
to die, if djdng will bring us to such ? Oh for the day 
when we shall come to some one of the many groups ; 
when we shall join the perfect spirits of the skies, 
know them, and be known of them ! What discove- 
ries will in that hour be made ! what greetings given 
and received ! what sweet surprises be experienced ! 
for many will be there whom we did not expect to 
see. Heaven will not be like a strange place, but like 
our home from which we had been detained : for we 
shall see, not strangers, but old familiar faces ; and 
faces never by us seen before will be known instantly 
by us, by that law of subtile, spiritual recognition by 
which spirits know each other everywhere, even as 
they know and are known instantly of God ; and 
heaven will be in its sights and sounds and greetings 
a great home-gathering to us Avho enter it. 

My friends, I am not tired of earthly life beyond 
what all men, fitted for the life to come, at times are 
weary of it. I love it in its uses, its labors, and its 
J03's. Its duties give exercise to my faculties, its 
loves to my affections, its successes to my happiness. 
I am not morbid, but sense the world through a 
healthy body, a growing mind, and a hope as strong 
and bracing as a current of northern air when it bears 



318 DEATH A GAIN. 

down upon a camp from the sides of mountains planted 
thickly with odorous trees. The pulse of this life is 
strong within me, my friends many, and my fortune 
beyond my merit or my expectation. I am not talk- 
ing to you as a disappointed, a depressed, an unhappy 
man. Keeping only what I have, blessed only with 
my present blessings, I could stay on earth forever if 
it be God's will, and be content. But, in spite of all 
this, when my thoughts range out ahead, and canvass 
my future, I can but feel persuaded that the present, 
precious as it is, does not begin to measure the re- 
sources of blessing hidden in the heart of God for me. 
My present state does not permit me their full recep- 
tion ; does not allow the perfect disclosure of his love. 
I need the spiritual body, the heavenly language, the 
celestial sphere of action, the holy companionships, 
the powers and functions, the rank and dignity, the 
privilege and liberty, of the glorified world and state, 
or ever I shall know the breadth and length and 
depth and height of the riches of his love ; and I 
feel persuaded, that by the very drift and movement 
of time I am being borne toward, and at last shall 
come to, something far better than the good of to-day. 
I am often asked if we shall know our friends 
in heaven ; if the old loves will abide, and the ties 
formed on earth endure. I cannot doubt it. What 
is there in death to shock the coherence of these 
bonds, or sunder the cords that bind us to our loved 
ones ? You can tell if aught there be ; for you have 
stood and seen the gentle die. You have seen their 
closing eyes grow luminous with an immortal light. 



DEATH A GAIN. 319 

You have seen the lips, that quivered to say the long 
farewell, part even in saying it with a heavenly smile. 
You could not hold them back or keep them from 
their rest. You lost in losing them what made life 
rich ; but they had come to the borders of a mighty 
gain, and entered in and took possession of their im- 
mortality, not, as they had thought, with shrinking, but 
with joy. It was not in your hearts to hinder them. 
You only stood and prayed, while tears rained down 
your face, that you might be remembered from out 
their mansions amid the everlasting light. You are 
remembered. They are like God ; and, like him, they 
bear you evermore in mind. Heaven never forgets. 
" Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to 
minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation ? " 
We live like stars in constellation, and move on in 
groups. Resolve the race into its constituent parts, 
by nations, by tribes, by families, and you find that 
the universal symbol is the circle. A little cordon of 
clasped hands represents the whole. The race began 
in incompleteness, and was made perfect in two. We 
flock naturally, we group, we cluster ; and the higher 
we are carried up in development, the closer are we 
drawn together. When we touch the perfect love, we 
are inseparable. Death does not suspend the action 
of this organic law of life in man : never think so. Do 
angels stand apart, isolate each from the other? 
Shall we diverge, when, like so many suns, we rise 
above the mountains, and the outrayings of our lives 
find at last a level and an endless range ? No : we 
shall come nigher than before ; our union then will be 



320 DEATH A GAIN. 

the union of kindred elements ; and God to all our 
loves will be even what the air is to music. He will 
receive them all into his bosom, be thrilled by them, 
and pass them on, he being a perfect medium for- 
ever. 

My friends, there is another and a higher gain, un- 
mentioned as yet, which the Christian will receive in 
dying. It is the spiritual gain ; the gain of the soul ; 
the gain of the spirit ; of those pure, strong, immor- 
tal forces of thought and observation in us which re- 
late directly to God. Of this I cannot speak unless 
I claim a knowledge I do not have. The physical 
gain I can appreciate ; the mental understand ; the 
social, through the imagination, at least dimly con- 
ceive of : but of the gain which the soul of man re- 
ceives in dying, I know, and can know, nothing. I 
might as well attempt to gain a knowledge of the sun 
by gazing at it with my unassisted eye. Its glory 
bhnds me ; its going-forth is too mighty for me. I 
drop my gaze perforce, and find relief in a lower 
range of vision. The meeting of spirit with spirit, — 
of all spirits with the one parental Spirit, — who can 
conceive of it? We know what it is when mind 
meets mind, when heart meets heart ; and here and 
there two may be found whose souls ha". ^ been united. 
They apprehend each the other's thought instinctive- 
ly, as we shall apprehend the thoughts of God when 
lit in purity for their reception. They judge by intui- 
tions, as we shall judge when brought in sympathetic 
connection with the divine nature. They mutually 
appropriate and possess the other, even as Jehovah 



DEATH A GAIN. 321 

sweeps within the circle of his affection all whom he 
loves. Their union is not of law, nor yet of love 
alone : it is of essence with essence, of two lives 
mated for two worlds, of two intelligences joined for 
two spheres. A union like this — based not on name 
nor law nor love — shall outlive these, and lift itself 
above the wreck of mere temporal relations, — even as 
some majestic column stands above the ruins of a city 
shaken into fragments by an earthquake, — sole, im- 
pressive, indestructible, in heaven. So shall the soul 
of man be in its union with God. What rank, what 
dignity, what privilege and majesty, will it not bring 
to us ! I stand in awe before the expectation. It 
rises on my faith as a city seen from a mountain at 
sunrise shines out from amid the mists, — spires and 
roofs of gold from out a crimson sea. So heaven 
seems to me. So seems the hour of meeting God. 
O soul ! be still. Canst thou not bear the yoke one 
hour, and not complain ? Is it not enough that thou 
shalt surely come at last to rest and him ? 

I stood with friends this summer upon a beach, after 
a day of storm, inhaling the cool air and the wild odors, 
when suddenl}^ upon my right hand and my left, a crim- 
son mist arose, floated lightly upward, and formed a 
bow. We gazed and gazed as if we stood beneath the 
porch of heaven. Its either base was not a hundred 
feet from where we stood, the central section of its 
dome directly over our head. Even then, as we were 
gazing at its suspended beauty, a current of air came 
out of the west, and put its pressure upon the chan- 
ging dyes ; and, keeping its perfect outline, it floated 

14* 



822 DEATH A GAIN. 

across the lake, enlarging as it went. It pushed its 
bases out, and lifted up its dome, as if angels were 
heaving underneath it, until its base extended miles, 
and the majestic mountain stood beneath its arch of 
matchless color ; and there it hung, a frame of crim- 
son dyes around the hills, while all its glory was re- 
flected from the lake beneath. So, once again I say, 
shall be to me this hope of gain in dying. From a 
boy I dreamed of immortality, — of something larger 
and nobler ahead. The aspiration existed before I 
came to Christ. Faith in him did not beget the long- 
ing : it only revealed the mode and method of its 
realization. It grew upon my right hand and my left, 
— a mist of faith and love and deathless impulse. It 
formed itself even out of tears. It widened out its 
side, and lifted up its dome, as I advanced in years, 
and floated ofp until it swept my life within its bases, 
and spanned the future, arching it with radiance. 
And there, my friends, it hangs to-day, the hills of 
heaven underneath it, and the mystic sea before the 
throne giving back its every hue ; while from out its 
dome,. as from a far-off distance, the bells of the un- 
seen city, seen never by the living, set in sweetest 
chime, send out their notes, — a hymn of praise that 
never ends, and gains in sweetness as it swells. 



SABBATH MORJTIKQ, SEPT. 17, 1871, 



SERMON. 



TOPIC- BUSINESS-LIFE i ITS USES AND DANGERS. 

"IfOT SLOTHFUL IN BUStXESS." — Eom. xii, 11. 

IF one would understand how wide the New Tes- 
tament is in its application to human affairs, how 
practical and matter-of-fact in its requirements, how 
far removed from the realm of speculation and mere 
philosophizing, he has only to read this twelfth chap- 
ter of Romans. The religion of the New Testament 
is a religion which relates to the smallest detail 
of conduct. Instead of its being a religion of the 
emotions alone, it touches these only that it may the 
more surely affect the practice. Here in this chapter 
the inspired writer runs over the entire scale of 
Christian duty, touching almost every key. He 
seems to cover almost every possible contingency of 
conduct, leaving nothing in the way of direction for a 
good man to desire. 

I have spoken to you from several of these passages 
already ; and this morning I wish to offer certain sug? 
gestions from the words I have recited as my text ; 
" Not slothful in business." 



324 BUSINESS-LIFE : ITS USEa AND DANGEES. 

The Word of God, in all its expressions, is direct 
against laziness. It is said in the Proverbs, that " the 
way of the slothful man is as a hedge of thorns," and 
that " the desire of the slothful killeth him." In 
the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew we have the 
picture of, and the condemnation pronounced upon, 
the " wicked and slothful servant ; " and here in the 
text is the express command, '' Be not slothful." 

Many reasons might be adduced to account for the 
strong expressions in the Bible touching this habit. 
There can be no doubt but that God regards laziness 
as a sin in itself. Indolence is one form of vice. The 
idle hour is the Devil's opportunity. What a splendid 
opportunity some people give him ! Non-employment 
of the mind and the sympathies prevent reformation. 
The way to drive out wicked imaginations is, not by 
endeavoring to stop thinking, but by a substitution of 
good for evil thoughts. Nor is there any way which 
leads to happiness other than through the exercise 
of the emotions and faculties given us of God. Pleas- 
ure of all kind is found in the movement, and not 
stagnation, of the faculties. Thought itself is action ; 
and to say that one is happy is to say that his sensi- 
bilities are in a state of delightful exercise. 

There is this further thought which I wish to sug- 
gest to you in this connection : it is this : We are to 
strive by diligent attention to excel in the duties of 
our particular calling. If a bird wishes to reach a 
given point in the shortest possible space of time, it 
must not zig-zag ; it must not fly in half-circles or 
curves, or swoop up and down : it must so aim and 



BUSINESS-LIFE : ITS USES AND DANGEBS 5:21 

balance itself, that every stroke of its wings shall pro 
ject it in a straight line. Now, there are a greaL 
many men who do business in a zig-zag, eccentric 
kind of a way. They fly, now toward this point, now 
toward that ; they are fickle, changeful, and intermit- 
tent ; they never settle down to any one thing ; they 
never make every nerve and faculty tell in one 
straight line. They are forever mixing themselves up 
in outside matters, ventures, speculations, and wild 
schemes. Now, friends, this sort of thing will not 
do. Such a road is too crooked, too full of pitfalls, to 
advance a man toward the fullest measure of success, 
whether you gauge success by the low or the high 
level of measurement. The world has advanced so 
far already, its industries are so wide and various, 
the laws that govern them are so intricate, the cir- 
cumstances which dictate success are so changeful, 
that no one man can master them all. One branch of 
business is as much as one head can manage well at 
a time : one life is none too long to acquire the needed 
experience. The great vineyard of human activity 
is mapped out into sections ; and one section is 
all any of you can cultivate thoroughly at a time. 
The age does not allow of Admirable Crichtons, — 
men who know every thing, and can do every thing 
superlatively well. If a man is a ship-builder, he 
need not go outside of his trade to find room and 
necessity for all his talents and time : if a house- 
builder, he must give his entire attention to the con- 
ditions which underlie success in that branch of in- 
dustry: if a preacher, then let him remember that 



326 BUSINESS-LTFE : ITS USES AND DANGERS. 

preachers do not grow spontaneously ; that he must 
devote the best years of his life to the art and toil, 
until his head whitens, before he can feel that the 
gospel receives a fit utterance through his lips. The 
preacher must press the richest juices of his life out 
in his study, if he would have his ministrations like 
rich wine to the hearts and souls of his hearers. There 
is no such thing, there never will be such a thing 
again, as general knowledge. All knowledge hence- 
forth will be specific. All students must be special- 
ists. An engineer, must be an engineer, and feel, 
that, in the perfect knowledge of and control over the 
magnificent power intrusted to his hands, he has 
mounted to a throne, and holds a terrible sceptre. 
An engineer said to me the other night as I sat in 
the driving-house, and watched him while he sent his 
engine flying into the fog and darkness at the rate of 
fifty miles an hour, — " It is not enough," said he, put- 
ting his lips to m}^ ear, and shouting, so that I might 
hear his words amid the thundering din, — " it is not 
enough that I should have an eye-knowledge of this 
engine : I must have an ^ar-knowledge of it. And," 
continued he as we rolled up to the junction, " there 
is not a screw, a bolt, a valve, or any part of this en- 
gine, which, should it get out of its place, and I were 
blindfolded, I could not instantly detect it with my 
ear. I tell you, sir," he added, " a man must mider- 
stand his business when he undertakes to carry safely 
seven hundred souls so near eternity as an engine 
rolls," 

That is it, friends : a man must understand his busi- 
ness if he is to escape risk in any thing. 



BUSIXESS-LIFE : ITS USES AND DANGERS. 327 

ISTow, I am of those who believe, that, provided 
his election was right, and his business or profession 
is adapted to his capacities, a man will, on the whole, 
do the most good bj concentrating all his energies 
along the line of his choice. Whatever his trade is, 
let him master his trade, or come just as near mas- 
tering it as a short life will allow one to do. The 
fact is, one life is not long enough to master any 
thing thoroughly. The poet is only ready to begin to 
sing when death puts a seal upon his lips, and forbids 
farther music forever. So AVhittier, like an instru- 
ment whose keys have only just mellowed into rich- 
ness, but whose frame is just ready to fall in pieces, 
sings to-day. How often have we felt like saying of 
him and others, " Oh that his tuneful soul might not 
be called hence as yet, but be clothed upon Avith a 
younger and stronger body ! — what melody would 
the world hear in the next fifty years ! " So it is with 
man through the whole range of activity. Tlie man 
of business must stop in the midst of his plans : the 
preacher cease to plead when knowledge has ripened, 
and soul been sanctified for a perfect utterance : the 
physician and surgeon, having toiled for fifty years, 
must bow to the inevitable mandate when most fitted 
to benefit man : and the saying is a truism, that one 
life is scarcely ample enough to learn one trade. 

Now, friends, I hold it to be a prime obligation 
resting on every man, to succeed, up to the fullest 
measure of that success which is possible to him. in 
life. Success is not only pleasant : it is a duty. Look 
at man along whatever range of faculties, and you 



328 BUSINESS-LIFE : ITS USES AND DANGERS. 

will see in the perfect equipment of capacity, in the 
presence of every necessary energy, the obligation to 
succeed. In the wings of a bird, you see that the 
Maker has suggested flight ; in the build of a dog 
and horse, speed ; in the ox, strength. And so, through 
all the grades of life, God, in the organization, in the 
capacities bestowed, has pointed out the mode and 
result of life. But in man this is more observable. 
Look at yourself, my friend, in your faculties, in your 
endowments by nature, and see in the liberal, I had 
almost said, nay, I will say, in the superabundant 
resources of your organization, the suggestion, yea, 
the command, of your Maker. All the elements and 
means necessary to success in any branch of worthy 
industry, in any line of noble ambition, are in you. 
A young man has no right to fail in life. It may not 
be his duty to succeed in the direction and to the 
extent that his ambition may suggest ; for ignorance 
may misdirect, and vanity exaggerate : but it is his 
duty to succeed in that direction, and to that extent, 
in which his natural capacities point and make pos- 
sible. 

Society is full of failures that need never have been 
made ; full of men who have never succeeded, when 
they might have, and should have, succeeded ; full of 
women, who, in the first half of their days, did noth- 
ing but eat and sleep and simper, and in the last. half 
have done nothing but perpetuate their folhes and 
weaknesses. The world is full, I say, of such people ; 
full of men in every trade and profession who do not 
amount to any thing, and of girls and women without 



BUSINESS-LIFE : ITS USES AND DANGERS. 329 

any trade or profession who have no desire to amount 
to any thing : and I do not speak irreverently, and, I 
trust, not without due charity, without making due 
allowance for the inevitable in life, when I ^ay that 
God and thoughtful men are weary of their presence. 
Every boy ought to improve on his father ; every girl 
grow into a nobler, gentler, more self-denying woman- 
hood than the mother. No reproduction of former 
types will give the world the perfect type. I know 
not where the millennium is, as measured by distance 
of time ; but I do know, and so do you all, that it is a 
great way off as measured by human growth and 
expansion. We have no such men and women yet, 
no age has ever had any, as shall stand on the earth 
in that age of peace that will not come until men 
are worthy of it. 

I do not know what you think of that millennial 
period, or how you are accustomed to picture it to 
your minds : but I have sometimes thought, by the 
prayers and sermons I have heard containing allu- 
sions to it, that the majority of people pictured it as 
a period when everybody shall take a kind of recess 
from their ordinary work, and go Avalking up and 
down, or lying about in groups with their eyes fast- 
ened on the heavens, kindly disposed to each other, 
doing no v/ork, and having a good time generally. 

Now, that is not my conception of the millennium. 
I do not believe in the recess idea. There will be no 
let-up to human activities, no dropping of ordinary 
work, no change of salutary employment. The dif- 
ference will not lie in such things. There will be just 
1* 



330 BUSINESS-LIFE: ITS USES AND DANGERS. 

as many banks then as now (and not many more, 
I hope) ; but the officers will all be honest men. 
Railroad companies will run their trains as often as 
they do to-day ; the difference being, that conductors 
will be paid better salaries, and not be tempted so 
much, as they are now, to steal. 

I believe that all our faculties, that every energy, 
every force, every industry, will be in the state of the 
highest exercise. The sea will never be so white 
with sails, the earth never resound with the hum of 
such swift activity, never will the bustle of business 
be so loud, never men so active, as when the light of 
that blessed,, that long-anticipated period shall dawn. 
Vv'hen every man is honest, every government just, 
every power for good utilized, every purpose honora- 
ble, every motive pure, the world will be ready to 
welcome the Lord. As it is with man, so will it be 
with the race. Growth into the moral likeness of 
God means growth into the moral activities of God. 
Holiness knows no rest, no pause, in the outgoings 
of its benevolence. Increase in personal goodness 
means the better direction of personal power, influ- 
ence, and energy. The angels of God find rest in 
flight. They are his messengers ; and heaven to them 
is to do his bidding. And so it is and must be with 
those who live in sympathy with him on earth ; who 
have been breathed upon by him, and feel themselves 
inspired to do deeds fitting such inspiration. To do 
his will, to serve him, and, in serving him, serve man, 
both day and night, is not merely their delight : it is 
the law of their lives. It is the most real result of 



BUSINESS-LIFE : ITS USES AND DANGERS. 331 

the new birtli ; the peculiar, the unmistakable mark 
which proves their connection with the Deity. The 
voice of Christianity is and will forever be heard cry- 
ing for work. It will ring through all the ages ahead, 
riding the air clear as a bugle-note, swelling in vol- 
ume as it rolls. It will expand on all sides, sending 
out waves of sound until the atmosphere of the whole 
world shall vibrate with its clarion-call. Humanity 
will be redeemed, each faculty retained, no power, no 
capacity, being crushed out ;. and as man by man is re- 
newed into the original likeness, as the old long-lost 
beauty returns to the countenance, face after face will 
be lifted, lip after lip will part, and the prayer of each 
and all will be, " To spend and be spent for Christ." No 
sail will be folded, no wheel stopped, no bustle cease, 
no note slumber amid the keys for lack of touch to 
bring it forth, no lusty call to labor be ungiven, no 
mirthful laugh be checked, no poet's song unsung, 
in the millennial age : but piety and diligence, too 
long divorced, shall renew their ancient troth ; and 
the hands that know not now the other's touch shall 
be reclasped,to part no more forever. 

But do not think that diligence in business alone is 
the command of Scripture. Application is not virtue, 
and never will be. A busy man, who converts night 
into day by the ceaseless activity of his thoughts, is 
not necessarily a good man. The motive of his in- 
dustr}^, the object of his perseverance, is what tests 
their value, and reveals his true character. I warn 
you men who are immersed in business-pursuits to 
bear this in mind. Be alarmed when you find that 



332 BUSINESS-LIFE: ITS USES AND DANGERS. 

the acquisition of wealth is getting to be the habit of 
your thoughts. The accamulation of money is not the 
best, not necessarily an advantageous, result of your 
activities. It is because a faithful attention to busi- 
ness develops you yourself that you are to give it. 
To discipline jour mind; to make benevolence possi- 
ble to you; to provide, not for the vanity and pride, 
but the necessity, of others ; to put you in a position 
from which you can exert a healthy influence in soci- 
et}^ — in these and like results you see the true benefit 
of diligence. Be careful where you lay up j'our treas- 
ures. You can take no money with you to heaven ; 
you can take only your character. You know that 
I never introduce the subject of dying into my ser- 
mons to frighten you : that would be a poor gospel 
indeed which should give me no stronger name to in- 
fluence your motives than death, no more powerful 
words with which to start you to thought than the 
spade and the grave. But, nevertheless, you know 
as well as I do that you are mortal ; that there is 
somewhere ahead a grave for every one of you, and 
an hour set in which you will die ; and you know, 
that, whether you have little or much, you cannot 
take one dollar of it into the next world. " What 
then shall I take ? " do you ask. I reply. You will 
take your minds there : see, therefore, that you in- 
struct them properly. You will take your imagina- 
tion there : see to it that it be pure ; for it is written, 
that nothing that defiletli shall enter therein. You 
will take your emotional natures there : see to it, then, 
that, ere that hour, they be fit for the bosom and the 



BUSINESS-LIPE : ITS USES AND DANGERS. 333 

station of an angel. And last, but not least, you will 
take the result of your sins there, unless God shall 
mercifally remove them before yon die. Keep these 
facts well in mind, friends and companions ; for upon 
your daily remembrance of them will largely depend 
your peace and safety in your dying-hour. 

Now, many of you have lived years in business-life : 
3^ou have grown gray in trade and commerce. You 
have been here for years, and done your part to lift this 
city into its present prominence : it is a long while since 
you came to it as a boy in years and experience. Now, I 
wish to say a few words to you. You know that I rejoice 
in your prosperity, and mourn at your losses. The 
Lord has granted unto you to be pillars and columns 
of support in this his temple. The future of this 
church leans on you as a post not yet set into the 
ground leans on the holder. It is the voice of sym- 
pathy, of pride, of friendship, that needs not to be 
ashamed of itself, that now comes to you ; and what it 
solicits is, that you look back over all your years of 
toil and struggle, over all your failures and successes, 
over all the dark and bright seasons of your commer- 
cial or professional life, and observe -what effect it has 
all had upon you. You are now lifted, as it were, 
upon a hill-top. Before you look into the valley ahead, 
look for a moment on the valley back of you. It is the 
color of the sunset that tells us what will be the char- 
acter of the coming day. You have striven for 
wealth ; and many of you have it, or are getting it. 
What else have you ? What else are you getting be- 
sides ? This you must leave ; but what have you 



33 BUSINESS-LIFE : ITS USES AND DANGERS. 

that you can take with 3^ou at death ? When earth- 
ly raiment falls, when all the earthly conditions and 
surroundings with which you are arrayed now shall 
drop, with what will 3*ou be clothed upon ? I pray 
God that it maj^ be with the mantle of a perfected 
character, over which, both as armor and a kingly 
vesture, shall be seen the righteousness of Christ ; for, 
being so clothed, you shall not be found naked. 

The great danger ahead, friends, the imminent peril 
poising over us all as a hawk above its prey, ready to 
swoop, is materialism. Do not forget, that, in the first 
seventy years of the Republic's life, the lust of gain 
nearly destroyed us. Woe will be to us all when our 
young men shall see nothing heroic in business ; when 
trade shall have nothing more honorable in it, nothing 
to be prized more, than money ; when commerce shall 
be only mercenary, and the motive which impels the 
capacities of the people worthy only of the slave-trade ! 
Should such a day ever come, beggary will be a bless- 
ing, and the heaviest curse felt the curse of birth. 
Better not be born than to live in such an age ; bet- 
ter die in the cradle like a flower in the bud : for life 
will be but the unfolding of a poisonous principle, 
like a flower whose every leaf adds to the volume of 
poison already in the atmosphere ; and the larger the 
flower, the deadlier the poison ; for history, if it proves 
nothing else, proves at least this, — that '' a nation 
which knows not God shall utterly perish." 

There is probably not a Christian man present who 
does not agree in substance with me. You see the 
danger ; you have felt the force of the pressure, even 



BUSINESS-LIFE : ITS USES AND DANGERS. 335 

in your own characters. You see to what peril the 
Toung men are to b5 exposed. What, then, are you 
doing to prevent it ? Have you warned your boy of the 
great risk of the age ? Have you re-enforced, are 3^ou 
re-enforcing, the nobler impulses of his soul by your 
example ? You may be safe ; but is he safe ? You were 
seasoned and sobered by early poverty ; but he begins 
life with the advantage, as you think, and as he thinks, 
of wealth. God grant it may not prove to his hurt ! 
Wealth should not hurt him ; and will not, if you 
teach him to look upon it rightly. But warn him. 
Tell him that a full stream means a swift current ; 
tell him that he must be a better man, a more spir- 
itual-minded man, than his father has been, or he will 
be a great deal worse. No generation should go to 
its grave until it has given to the one that is to follow 
it the benefit of its experience. I think of the graves 
where your fathers sleep ; I think of the mounds 
scattered all through the country graveyards of New 
England, where your mothers repose. They were, 
for the most part, I presume, hard-working people, 
honest and economical. They loved the sabbath and 
the sanctuary ; they educated you to work ; they 
impressed you with their own habits ; they gave unto 
you, before you left them, the best they knew of 
wisdom. Go and do likewise. Pay to those graves 
the deep debt of gratitude you owe them by trans- 
mitting to your children the lesson of your experi- 
ence, as they transmitted to you the teachings of 
theirs. 

It is the relation of business, of all activity to 



336 BUSINESS-LIFE : ITS USES AND DANGEKS. 

man's development, it is in the object that all these 
exercises subserve, that we see* their honor and dig- 
nity. Any ex:ercise which will build your charac- 
ter up in worthiness, which will strengthen your 
integrity, make a wider benevolence possible to you, 
cause you to be powerful as an example for good, is 
indeed honorable. Viewed in this light, business, the 
professions, the arts, the sciences, trade, and com- 
merce, are all honorable : viewed in an}^ other, they 
are ail base. Whatever lowers the average of virtue, 
gives discipline and prominence to cunning, encour- 
ages covetousness, ministers to vanity and ostenta- 
tion, binds a man down to the earthy, — whatever 
does this is bad and base and wicked : for man's 
pursuits should improve man ; should ennoble, and not 
debase ; sliould prepare, and not unfit him for another 
and a better sphere. Prove all things, friends ; hold 
fast to that which is good. 

If I am anxious for you ; if I carry you who are in 
the midst of gainful pursuits most on my heart ; if 
in my best moods, when I realize the vanity of this 
world most, and the dignity of the life to come, and 
if, when, with every faculty quickened by the Spirit, I 
seem lifted out of myself into a state and stature more 
akin to such aspirations, — if then I bear you to the 
Father of your souls, and, standing there in front 
of the great white throne, plead for jou, it is not 
for your sakes alone I plead, but for the sake of all 
living, and of all yet to be born. The time was when 
those who urged on the industries of the world were 
of little influence or weight. The indolent class held 



BUSINESS-LIFE: ITS USES AND DANGERS. 337 

the sceptre ; the drones ruled the hive. The reverse 
is true to-day. Trade and commerce are no longer 
the proof of menial blood. The marks which de- 
monstrate royalty are other than they were of old 
time. The business-men of the country can alone 
save the country. Piety must look to you for her 
noblest examples. If in your natures and lives 
Christianity meets with failure, I know not where oi 
to whom she may look for success. The strength of 
morality as a substitute for religion is derived from 
the imperfect example of professed Christians. If 
you lived better, you would convert more. 

You will pardon this plainness of speech if it be 
founded upon an erroneous apprehension of the forces 
that underlie society. If it be founded on a correct 
analysis, I ask no excuse for it ; let it all stand, albeit 
the words are grave : for if you do, in the providence 
of God, occupy the position I hold you do, then it 
behooves you to look to it that you meet your obli- 
gations to the letter. 

And now, friends, I have said what I had in mind, 
and what I prepared to bring before you this morn- 
ing. You see on which side my caution leans ; you 
have my whole mind touching your duty and your 
danger: I need add no more. May the Spirit, who is 
mighty to apply the truth, take of my weak words, 
and make them- strong ! 

How these sabbaths come and go ! How swiftly 
the weeks pass ! and how the years are being multi- 
phed upon us I Many a patch of vapor have I seen 



338 BUSIKESS-LIFE : ITS USES AND DANGERS. 

rise from the valley, and melt away, leaving no trace ; 
many another patch have I seen rise from the low 
level, lifted by strong currents of air until the sun 
met it with its rays, and changed from gray to crim- 
son its edges burning like opals, keeping its cohe- 
rence, float out of mortal vision, that sought in vain 
to follow it along its path of glory : and I have said 
to myself, " Life is indeed like a vapor ; but what dif- 
ference there may be, even in vapor ! And what dif- 
ference there may be in two lives ! — one visible only 
when moving in the dense atmosphere of this earth, 
but disappearing the instant it rises above the damp- 
ness of its home ; the other seen indeed from the 
start, but never so prominent as when the other 
fades; never truly resplendent until it has been 
lifted far above the earth, and is borne away in the 
clear light of God." 



SABBATH MORJ^ma, SEPT. 2 4, 1871. 



SERMOK 



SUBJECT. -VALUE OF PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE AND CONTACT WITH 
THE VICIOUS AS THE MEANS FOR THEIR REFORMATION. 

<'BUT THEIR SCRIBES AND PHARISEES MURMURED AGAINST HIS DIS- 
CIPLES, SATING, Why do ye eat and drink WITH PUBLICANS AND 

SINNERS ?" — Luke V. 30. 

I WILL read you the entire passage from which the 
text is taken; for it gives us a very vivid and 
peculiar picture of Christ in liis relation to the vicious 
class of his time, and forces upon our attention his 
method of procedure. This is the way it is recorded 
in the Gospel by Luke : — 

" And after these things he went forth, and saw a 
publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom ; 
and he said unto bim. Follow me. And he left all, 
rose up, and followed him. And Levi made him a 
great feast in his own house ; and there was a great 
company of publicans and of others that sat down 
with them. But their scribes and Pharisees mur- 
mured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye 
eat and- drink with publicans and sinners ? And 
Jesus, answering, said unto them. They that are 
whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. 



340 PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE WITH SINNERS 

I came, not to caU the righteous, but sinners to 
repentance." 

The Church, friends, has passed beyond the period 
of theological discussions. Whatever is intricate in 
exegesis, or difficult in interpretation, has been made 
plain; at least, as much so as human ingenuity and 
close attention may ever do it. Nineteen hundred 
years of discussion of the doctrines of the Bible, as 
they are styled, have left us little to discuss. Not that 
scholarship is no longer needed ; not that new discov- 
eries will not reward patient examination : but the 
problems of the past will not be the problems of the 
future. The intellectual forces of the Church are still 
needed in all their vigor ; but they will be exercised 
in new directions, and toward new objects. In its 
theology the Church is ripe. Its branches are heavy 
with the matured thought of centuries. They droop 
under the*collected results of two thousand years of 
growth. For one (and I believe I speak for a large 
class of preachers), I accept the theology of the 
fathers. Doctrinally, I desire no '' new departure." 
The main, underlying facts of gospel narrative I put 
full faith in. I desire no novelties of doctrine or 
interpretation. The fathers laid the foundations 
deep, and made them strong. My trowel shall never 
start the old cement. I am anxious only touching 
the superstructure. 

It is not the interpretation, but the application of 
the gospel to human affairs, that concerns us of to-day. 
The reduction of Christianity to practice, and not the 
formulating it into systems, — this is what concerns us. 



THE MEANS FOR THEIR REFORMATION. 841 

How to best incarnate the truth we believe, how we 
can win others to our mode of life, — this is the prob- 
lem ; and to this I urge that all your energies be 
ceaselessly directed. 

Remember that books give no adequate expression 
to Christian truth. Christian men alone express 
Christianity. The character and the acts of Christ 
are a stronger proof of his divinity than his words. 
Study his sayings only that you may come to a bet- 
ter knowledge of him. As the lenses of a telescope 
are valuable only as they assist the eye to behold the 
star, so the words of the Bible are precious to us 
only because they bring Christ nearer to us, and cause 
us to have a clearer and more distinct vision of him. 
Now, the passage I have read presents Christ to us 
as a spiritual laborer. He wished to reach and convert 
a certain class of men ; and it shows us how he went 
to work to do it. In other passages he has instructed 
us by speech, verbal directions ; but here he teaches 
us by example. The lesson is very plain. The infer- 
ence touching our own duty is direct. Personal 
acquaintance and intercourse is here held up to us as 
the true method of putting a moral influence on 
wicked men. The idea is this : If you wish to con- 
vert a man, go to him. 

One thing may as well be settled first as last, — that 
non-intercourse never converted a sinner yet. If you 
touch nothing soiled in this world, you will keep your 
own hand white, beyond doubt ; but you will never 
cleanse any thing. You cannot wash dishes at long 
rano^e. When Christ went down to the house of 



342 PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE WITH SINNERS 

Levi the publican, to the great feast Levi had made 
for him, and sat down with those men whom society 
despised and hated, and justly too, he did not merely 
a brave act, but one of the wisest of his life. In the 
first place, it brought him face to face with a class of 
men that nobody cared for. The publicans were, as 
a whole, a villanous set; and society estimated them 
about right. It is safe to say, that even a Pharisee 
could not curse them too roundly ; for their propensi- 
ties to cheat and oppress were notorious. The tax- 
gatherers in Ireland during the years of famine were 
not more cordially or justly hated by the starving 
peasantry than were the publicans by the Jews. 
They were a despised, cruel, and neglected class, with 
neither social nor, church connection. The only 
earthly reason that Christ could give for going down 
to eat and talk, and, as I suppose, laugh, with these 
men, was that each one of them had a soul. Yea, 
every sharp-faced, thin-lipped, low-browed, keen-eyed 
money-gatherer before him had a soul. He had no 
pious parents, no respectable family connections ; he 
had never been rehgiously educated; he had no 
mother to pray for him ; he was not even a back- 
sliding church-member ; there was not a respectable 
man in Palestine who would introduce him to his 
daughters ; he was an earthly-minded, unprincipled 
villain. But he had a soul. That was enough. That 
was all the excuse Christ had ; the only possible rea- 
son that he could give friend and foe for eating with 
them. He needed no other. Whoever had a soul 
belonged to him ; at least, in effort, in sympathy, in 



THE MEANS FOE THEIE EEFORIVIATIOK 343 

hope. For just such people as these he had left 
heaven. These were the very ones he came to call 
to repentance. To win their love, to make them like 
him, and thus adopt his mode of life ; to send a shaft 
of light through the mirk of their sordidness ; to cleave 
it through and through, and dissipate it, — this was his 
aim. And it should be the aim of every Christian 
to-day who labors among the vicious for Christ. 

Well, that feast cost Christ something. The pious 
and horrified Pharisees tacked a name on to him 
wliich followed and clung to him, as a slanderous 
report often will follow and cling to a good man, to 
his dying-day. They styled him, after that, a '-'- friend 
oi publicans a,nd shiner s.^^ They cried it up and down 
through the whole country, that " Jesus of Nazareth 
had been eating with the tax-gatherers, fraternizing 
with the people's oppressors and loose characters." 
They said that he was nothing in the world but a 
wine-bibber and a glutton ; that, if he cast out devils, 
it was only by the hel^D of the Devil ; that the roughs 
and refuse of Palestine were swarming to him ; and 
that he afifihated with them, and declared everywhere 
that these should go into heaven before church-mem- 
bers and the best people of the land. 

The bigots and gossips of that day had a fine time 
of it, I warrant ; and fast and swift did they roll up 
that wave of calumny and misrepresentation which 
broke at last in bloody foam on Calvary. 

Well, what had Christ gained ? He had done, it 
must be admitted, a strange thing ; lost his good name 
and much influence by it among the religious class. 



344 PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE WITH SINNERS 

And what had he gained ? This, I answer: He had 
got at last face to face with the men he wanted to bet' 
ter. He knew their names, their vices, their good spots, 
and their bad ones ; had had a chance to study 
their mode of thought, learn something of their per- 
sonal history and the history of their families, and to 
get their affections. Don't start at that, I think 
those publicans grew quickly to love Christ. In the 
first place, he had already acquired great fame in the 
country, and they would naturally feel flattered by 
his notice. They saw also, that, in accepting their 
invitation, he had done an unpopular deed for him- 
self ; and this must have stirred them to gratitude. 
But, above all, his urbanity and approachableness, his 
simplicity of speech, and the entire absence of the 
holier-than-thou feeling in looks, dress, or manner, — 
all this, and much besides, must have drawn them 
toward him in cordial gratitude and respect. 

It must not be supposed that such a class of men 
are slow to recognize goodness. They acknowledge 
it readily, and respect it most heartily ; but it must be 
real. No sham passes current among them. It must 
be a piety which makes the heart kind, and the hand 
warm, and which talks of Christ in a natural tone of 
voice, and an open, beaming face. Now, I presume 
that the Saviour in his humanity was one of the most 
natural of men. In this consisted his great contrast to 
the Pharisees. He was a Galilean peasant, and dressed 
as such. He was a carpenter's son, and knew by ex- 
perience what manual labor is. He had never been 
drilled to write sermons in a modern theological 



THE MEAKS FOR THEIR REFORMATION. 345 

school, where the student, in order to stand high, 
must discover considerable more truth than God ever 
revealed ; nor had he ever got the prayer-meeting tone, 
or the severe and solemn expression, considered by 
many humble and orthodox : but he was a simple- 
spoken, grave-faced, kind-hearted young man. This 
at least, I presume, was what he appeared to the pub- 
licans when he sat down to supper. He had won his 
opportunity, I say; and I warrant, that, ere that feast 
^vas over, even their sordid natures had been quick- 
ened toward their wonderful guest, and some had 
eaten of bread which forbids hunger, and drunk of 
water which banished thirst forever. 

Now, what the churches in their individual ca- 
pacity want is contact, personal contact, with those 
whom they are to better. The great motives of re- 
form are to be inculcated individually. When a good 
man has won the respect and affection of a bad man, 
he has the evil in him at a tremendous disadvantage. 
The strength of the North-End Mission lies in its per- 
sonnel. In that field good people have put themselves 
in contact with bad people, and Satan is being thwart- 
ed. It is not their alms, but the kindly touch of 
their hands, their faces, their presence, their wise, 
pleasant, and hopeful words, that make their mission a 
success. Their system is right, because they are copy- 
ing after Christ. They are demonstrating their error 
to those who have lost faith in the happiness of virtue, 
and impressing the discouraged with the hopefulness 
of moral effort. They have taken hold of sin here just 
as you, through your missionaries, took hold of it in 



346 PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE WITH SINNEES 

the Sandwich Islands ; and the result, if they perse^ 
vere, will be the same. He who doubts it doubts 
the strength of virtue, the energy of truth, the power 
of energized love, and the omnipotence of God. 

There is another characteristic of piety that must 
not be overlooked. Mild and gentle as it is, it is full 
of antagonisms to whatever is unlike itself in nature. 
It cannot reconcile itself to nor endure the pres- 
ence of evil. It walks the streets of our cities with 
the pose of a soldier when carrying his musket at the 
" charge." Its features are set, inflexible, as an old 
veteran's when he marches into the blaze of batte- 
ries. The bodies of dead reputations are around him 
everywhere, and the air vibrant with danger. It is 
not because Christians court opposition that they are 
so often found at war with the established usages and 
customs of society, but because the positions tliat the 
two parties occupy insure inevitable collision. You 
take a boy, and educate him, I care not whether by 
purely human processes, or by human and heavenly 
processes conjoined, to dislike and regard as wrong 
certain courses of action, and you have pledged him 
to battle them by the very sympathies of his nature. 
Let, now, these virtuous instincts, and abhorrence of 
vice, be confirmed by years of experience and obser- 
vation among men ; let observation corroborate Scrip- 
ture, and re-enforce parental education as to the de- 
structive effects of sin upon persons and society, — and 
the man will be more intolerant of vice than was the 
boy. Reason will now act in conjunction with con- 
science ; knowledge of causes and effects in society 



THE MEANS FOE, THEIR REFORMATION. 347 

will stimulate the growth of what is most positive in 
his piety ; and he will look upon sin as a realist looks 
upon the untruthful in art, — as something to be con- 
demned and wiped out. Religion should find its 
stanchest advocates among the business-men of a 
country ; among those of the wisest experience in hu- 
man affairs, and most familiar with the practical work- 
ing of things : for you who are of this class know well 
that public prosperity and preponderating vices can- 
not co-exist in a community ; that, by as much as you 
sink a single street or section of this city in drunk- 
enness or any other vice, by so much do you detract 
not only from its capacity to produce, but also to con- 
sume. An ignorant, imbruted population buy little. 
As you press a man down to the level of an ani- 
mal, you contract the circle of his wants. His value 
as a customer is lessened as his vices increase. You 
might as well banish one-half the local custom of this 
city as to allow public morality to fall away to that 
extent. 

Now, as you all know, vice is always aggressive ; 
and between it and the intelligence of the country 
there will ever be conflict. The contest will grow 
fiercer and fiercer as the points of difference ^re heU 
ter apprehended by the participants. Every legiti- 
mate business in this city, every grocery and store 
and factory, is committed by the instinct of trade to 
oppose the increase of drunkenness and gambling 
and idleness in our midst. Intelligence, which brings 
with it the knowledge of warfts j and virtue, which 
begets mdustry by tl^e wages of which tlipse wants 



348 PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE WITH SINNERS 

are supplied, — are what cause wealth to accumulate, 
and trade to prosper. Political economy and religion 
are natural allies. God has pledged us to missionary 
effort by the most selfish of all instincts, — the instinct 
of money-getting. He has made success in things 
earthly dependent upon progression in things spirit- 
ual. He has stamped into the very substance of 
human society, that virtue pays. 

But, if trade cannot tolerate iniquity in this city, 
much less can piety. If the business-man as a busi- 
ness-man is bound to oppose its every development 
in our midst, when may the Christian become listless ? 
If Pearl Street and Commercial Wharf are directly 
interested in the North End and the South Cove, 
what are the churches of Boston to say touching the 
state of society in these localities? The churches 
of Christ are interested in these places : they are 
interested as a gentleman is interested in a miserable 
marsh that lies in front of his house, marring his 
view, and sending up its foul miasms to spread over 
his lawn, and stream through his windows into his 
rooms. It is not only an unsightly, an offensive, but 
a dangerous object : its exhalations are loaded with 
contagion ; it is the very source of disease ; its continu- 
ance is a shame and disgrace to his enterprise, and an 
impeachment of his affections. If he loves his chil- 
dren, he will remove the evil from them. It is just 
so touching this accumulation of vice within hailing- 
distance of our churches. Here are entire sections 
of the city given over to be populated and possessed 
by viciousness ; and we plume ourselves if we keep it 



THE MEANS FOR THEIR REFORMATION. 349 

within its own bounds. We give up one house out 
of every three to be a brothel, a gambling-den, or a 
rum-shop, and then rejoice that our morals are so 
well protected. We make one-half of the city a 
safe spot for a lady to walk in by day, and one-third 
of it tolerably secure for gentlemen by night, and call 
our method of city government a success. I would 
like to know, would like to ask this question of 
some of you who are interested in this thing, because 
God has made it the city of your residence, and the 
city of your hope, and the city where your children 
are to live, — I would like to ask you what you think 
of it ? Here you are. Christian men of large means and 
large influence, — influential enough to be felt in the 
Sandwich Islands, in Africa, in Asia, in China, and 
in every known land under heaven, — and your own 
city is not half Christianized. I say, and I believe 
that I speak the simple truth, that the state of things 
here, morally considered, is a shame upon every man 
and woman of influence in this city that call them- 
selves Christians. Why, look at it. Here we are 
living year in and year out with a marsh right in 
front of us ; the atmosphere which we breathe, and 
which our wives and children breathe, absolutely 
fetid and rank with moral rottenness ; our jails 
filled to overflowing ; our streets so insecure, that you 
must needs, in many sections of the city, keep your 
policemen within sight of each other ; the sabbath 
so openly disregarded, that desecration is habitual, and 
excites no comment. And all we have done, so far, has 
been this : We have hired some twelve or twenty 



350 PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE WITH SINNEES 

men and women to go down each year, and throw a 
thousand Bibles, and twenty thousand religious tracts 
as large as the palm of your hand, into this huge 
bayou of blue mud. I ask you to tell me how long 
it will take to fill it up at this rate ? Do you think 
that the stench will be taken out of the air by sprin- 
kling the lavender of the City Missionary Society over 
the pillows on which your consciences now sleep, 
undisturbed by the miasms that every gust of crime 
blows up into your bedrooms ? I know I am saying 
what will offend many ; for religious egotism is 
always offended at any impeachment of its wisdom 
or earnestness. It hates the man who takes it by the 
shoulders, and turns it about, and makes it look an 
ugly fact square in the face ; and the fact is, that 
men and women are living and dying by scores in this 
city, weekly, without any knowledge of God. The 
eyes of their torment look out upon a hundred church- 
steeples as they close in death, and their lids droop over 
the redness of an anguish that you have never tried to 
alleviate. They go up to God with the mirk of their 
sins upon them, as leaves which a tornado shovels 
out of the soil are flung up into the screaming air ; 
they go up, as your doctrines teach, to be condemned. 
And who are those who will be condemned along with 
them ? Can you tell me ? I imagine, that, in their day 
of trial, their voices will be heard. They shall not be 
gagged before that great assize : they shall plead 
their cause ; they shall pour forth their complaint. 
They will say, " Condemn us not, O Thou who wert 
not known by us ! We did not know thy law ; wa 



THE MEANS FOR THEIR REFORMATIOK 351 

did not know the truth ; we never heard a word — oh ! 
believe us, we never heard a syllable — of Jesus. Bear 
not on us too hard, O God ! " And one shall speak 
and say, " I was born in drunkenness. My vernacular 
was the language of obscenity. I learned to swear 
upon my mother's breast. There was no sabbath 
where I lived. To me the churches of which you 
speak were only public buildings : I had no right to 
them, nor had my father. I went to school ; but it 
was to wickedness. I graduated, but only from one 
degree of crime to another. Thy name was known 
only to give emphasis to our oaths : and though I 
lived among your people, as 'you call them, twenty 
years, not a man mentioned the name of Jesus to me ; 
not a woman gave me even a look, save of disgust or 
fear. O God ! bear not too hard upon me, but re- 
member in thy judgment my hard lot on earth." 

My friends, theirs is a hard lot. A child born last 
night in one of a thousand tenements of this city was 
born to a life-long curse. It is not that he is born to 
poverty ; that can be borne, and not kill. And some 
have borne it in the silence of a pride that jested 
away its bitterness, and made themselves insensible^ 
to its sting by their indifference : thej^ took their crust 
in patience, and made mirth of it, and would have died 
from sheer starvation, or ever they had given up a 
single plan, or owned that they were beaten, — died 
with a curve of humor on their lips, saying, " Pover- 
ty, you joined issue with me in my cradle ; and I have 
fought you, and I have won ! " No ; the curse that 
burdens them is not poverty. But they are born unto 



352 PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE WITH SINNERS 

the curse of ignorance and its lead-like pressures ; to 
the curse of rank appetite, with its swinish instincts; 
to the curse of lust engendered of drunkenness and 
all its coarse inflammations ; to tlie curse of instinctive 
and hereditary knavery, which shall not miss of teach- 
ers ; to the curse of days that have no honest service, 
of weeks that have no sabbath, of a life that has no 
God, and a death that has no hope. O God ! wh}^ 
are such lives repeated ? Why are such creatures 
born ? Why must the mould and mildew and rot fas- 
ten forever on that tree which thou didst plant in 
Adam, and taint with their bursting offensiveness 
the air of the whole world ? Is there no change, no 
blessed change, ahead? — no cold, dry breeze to come 
from some point of the round heavens, and blow its 
breath upon this constantly-maturing corruption, and 
check it once and forever ? 

There is. A change shall come, — a blessed change. 
A wind shall blow, a mystic wind, whence and whith- 
er we know not ; but in its passing it shall pass over 
man ; and all his cleaving defilement shall part from 
him and fall away, and human nature shall be as in the 
beginning, — fair to look upon, and v-ery good. There 
comes a prophecy to my lips of that great day. If 
Ignorance has ears, let her listen as I proclaim it ; for 
her dull eyes shall yet be lighted, and her now stolid 
features become mobile with intelligence. Her 
swarms shall lose their look of squalor ; and, lifted out 
of their degradation, they shall sit, whitefaced and 
cleanly, among the children of Wisdom. Yea, and if 
Vice could hear me, if I had a power within me to 



THE MEANS FOE THEIR EEFOEMATION. 353 

call it from where it burrows and nests ; if I could 
by some Ithuriel-like touch start it from its coiled 
concealment, and make it stand impersonate before 
you, — then here from this sacred place, where Reli- 
gion, grander in nature and act than any expression 
man can give to it, has her home, you being hearers 
and witnesses, — here would I pronounce its doom. 
Standing over against it, apprehending all its power 
and force and cunning, all its alliances and combina- 
tions, and the strength derived therefrom, would I say 
to it, " Thy day is set ; the leer and cunning of thy 
look shall leave thy face, the brutality of thy neck be 
sweated off; thy brow shall lift, thy wicked shrewd- 
ness be changed to useful skill, thy pilfering fingers 
acquaint themselves with honest industry ; and, being 
by the power of God renewed in nature, the force 
and energy of all thy powers shall be devoted unto 
him and man." 

Say not that this is wild prediction. Do not call 
my words extravagant. Let not my prophecy fail 
through your unbelief. This thing shall be, must be ; 
for he who speaks along the line of God's purposes 
speaks safely. And the divine wish is, — who can 
doubt it? — that Boston, through all its streets and 
squares, in all its trade and commerce, in all its art 
and science and out-blossoming culture, yea, and in 
its every household, shall be Christian. Bring out the 
banner," then ; the banner of God ; the banner of the 
cross and star ; the banner which has led the van of 
the world's progress for these two thousand years. — 
Why, there are flags in yonder Capitol that men have 



354 PERSONAL ACQUAINTANCE WITH SINNERS 

followed proudly to death. There may be those 
within the sound of my voice whose eyes have seen 
those tattered ensigns amid the dust of battle. You 
saw them wave amid whirling smoke and the fiery 
flame of war, and stood to your arms beneath them, 
when the air was thick with shot and shell, and brave 
men fell around you like autumn-leaves. And you 
shall have your fame. It shall live in chiselled mar- 
ble and the breathings of music. The granite, proud 
of such alliance, shall wed your immortality with its 
endurance, and your fame shall never be forgotten 
among men : for America, the latest born among na- 
tions, and, as I hold, the greatest, in her destiny has 
taken you to herself, as those who saved her in peril, 
and she will love you until death ; and when America 
— the America that is to be — dies, the world dies. 

But what are earthly compared to spiritual victo- 
ries ? and what are those tattered flags at the Capitol 
beside the banner under which the armies of God 
march on ? What are they ? Nothing. They are like 
rags beside the vesture of a king. They type the 
strength of man : this gives expression to the power 
of God. They symbolize an earthly nationality : this 
publishes to the wide universe the name of Him who 
is King of kings, and Lord of lords. — Bring out this 
banner, then, I say, — the banner of God, the banner 
of the cross and star, — and give it to me, and let me 
plant it here ; and as its folds stream out like waves 
of living light that chase each other, coming out of 
distance, and go into distance, crested with murmur 
and music, keeping their full swell, tell me as you see 



THE MEANS FOR THEIR REFORMATION". 355 

it with its emblazonry — the Lion of the tribe of Ju- 
dah —of burnished gold on a blue field, and hear the 
swelling of its undulations, — tell me, I say, if those 
who stand marshalled beneath it, clothed in the full 
armor of God, shall not go on to victory. My friends, 
the man who doubts is infidel against God and the 
great destiny of man. 



SABBATH MORMIMG, OCT. 1, 1871, 



SERMOK 



TOPIC- LOVE THE SOURCE OF OBEDIENCE. 
"If A MAN LOVE Me, he avill keep My words."— John xiv. 23. 

I THINK there is notHng that a sincere Christian 
more desires than to keep the commandments of 
Christ. He is so thoroughly persuaded of their essen- 
tial worthiness, he so fully and willingly acknowl- 
edges the obligation they impose, the Scripture has 
so educated him to regard them as tests of piety, that 
he has become very sensitive upon the subject ; and 
years only serve to increase this sensitiveness. These 
commandments are so inherently just, so conducive 
to the defence of his own virtue, so conservative to 
public morals, so salutary to society at large, that he 
longs to obey the voice of Him who spake as never 
man spake. But human nature is human nature 
still ; and lapses occur daily. At no time have 
we found ourselves doing the whole "law of the 
Lord." Temptations come, and are yielded to ; and 
the more anxious we are to stand in all the ordinances 
of the law blameless, the more we are convicted of 
failure. Effort is constant ; and yet we do not attain. 

356 



LOVE THE SOUECE OF OBEDIENCE. 357 

Baffled and discouraged, men are continually tempted 
to say, ' Jt cannot be done ; human nature can never 
succeed I will do the best I can, and leave my fail- 
ures in the hands of God's mercy." 

Now, I doubt if there is a single true professor in 
divine presence here this morning but that has felt 
this feeling a thousand times. You never have suc- 
ceeded in entirely doing what you feel you should do, 
what you heartily desire to do ; and failure has at 
last made you indifferent or despondent. You have 
either given over the attempt, settled down into the 
conviction that obedience is beyond your power, and 
thence are feeding your hopes with a false consolation ; 
or else, while you keep on trying and trying, feel 
you shall never succeed. You do not impeach the 
propriety of the demand ; but you do despair of full 
and triumphant compliance. 

Now, both of these feelings are bad. They are in- 
jurious to Christian growth ; they put an indirect 
aspersion upon God ; they sap the very foundations 
of that structure which the Holy Ghost seeks to rear 
within us, and in order to build which, faith and 
works must enter in equal proportions. 

But, friends, may it not be that our ill success is 
due to some other causes than those to which we at- 
tribute it ? May it not be that we have misunder- 
stood the philosophy of the subject, and fail to appro- 
priate the forces which would have surely pushed us 
on toward success ? Whence, then, comes the power ? 
What and where is this divine energy, which, were 
it constantly in our hearts, would, with a sweet, an 



358 LOVE THE SOURCE OF OBEDIENCE. 

irresistible authority, — an authority that we should 
gladly recognize and yield to, — command obedience ? 

It seems to me that Christ, in the passage we have 
read as our text, has suggested the true philosophy to 
us, pointed out the true source of power to his fol- 
lowers : " If ye love we, ye will keep my command- 
ments." Please attend while I unfold this sugges- 
tion before you. Listen, and inwardly digest what I 
say. 

Love is a passion ; and the strongest, most uncon- 
querable forces in human nature are the passions. 
There is a freshet-like sweep to them. Like rivers 
in spring-time, when the snows are melting on the 
mountains, and the clouds, driven by south winds, are 
emptying their waters upon the earth, they rise and 
swell, and surge and overflow, submerging the whole 
nature. How this current sweeps on, roaring as it 
goes ! Every faculty is covered, and judgment is but 
a little skiff, tossing about on the waves, spun around 
in the eddies, and borne on by the headlong flow. 
And whoever has watched himself, or observed men, 
to any purpose, knows that the passions are the 
strongest forces of our nature. 

There is one mistake almost every one makes. 
Parents make it ; teachers make it ; government 
makes it. It is this : they mistake the nature and the 
origin of passion. They act as if passions were evil 
by nature, and devilish in their origin. This is not so. 
God is the parent of our passions : he begat love, and 
said, " It is the fulfilling of the law ; " that is, the force 
out of which all obedience comes. Not that love it- 



XOVE THE SOUECE OF OBEDIENCE. 359 

self fulfils the law ; for no sentiment can take the 
place of, can do away with, works : but love is the ful- 
filment of the law in that out of it comes all fulfilment 
of the law ; it is the central wheel ; it is the great belt 
which impels in needed revolution every shaft and 
wheel in the entire establishment, — just as we say 
of a man, '' That man's fortune is in his brains." Not 
that it is in dollars and cents actually there ; not that 
stores and blocks of granite are really within the cir- 
cumference of his skull : but that within his brain are 
the forces that shall win the wealth, construct the 
buildings, which represent his fortune. This is what 
we mean when we say that a man's fortune is in 
his brain ; and that is what God means when he 
says in Scripture that " love is the fulfilling of the 
law." 

It is in the perversion, and not in the nature, of the 
passions, that you see their wickedness. The sin is in 
their misdirection, and not in their origin. How else 
can you explain the charge of the apostle, "Be ye 
angry, and sin not " ? Did he not plainly teach, not 
only the rank and inherent worth of a passion, but 
also the propriety and innocence of its legitimate ex- 
ercise ? Why, the very conception of a man is as a 
passionate creature (I use the word in its higher 
sense, of course). You might as well say that a cur- 
rent is a current when there is no motion to it, or air 
is air with no oxygen in it, as that man is man if he is 
devoid of passion ; for he was made in the image of 
God, and everywhere in Scripture God speaks of him- 
self as a passionate being. He " hates " and " loves " 



360 LOVE THE SOURCE OF OBEDIENCE. 

and " laughs " and " pities." At the heart of all in- 
telligence is glow and warmth, and possibilities of ex- 
citement and heat. Passion is that vital and vitalizing 
force in human nature that makes it to leaf and flower 
and fructify. In its sanctified forms you see the 
Godlike in man ; in its debased, the satanic. When 
pure, when refined, when noble, you see in it the 
beneficence of a God ; when stained, gross, and de- 
praved, the malevolence of a devil. 

Now, when Christ, the greatest and wisest of all 
teachers, came, he understood this. He knew the use 
of passion ; for it was his own child. He created man 
with it. He knew, too, its potency ; for, when man 
was begotten, he supplied it to him in due measure 
and force. When he began to teach, he claimed his 
child. He did not go to the conscience, and say, 
'' Convict ; " he did not go to the reverential faculty, 
and say, " Adore ; " he did not go to the reason, 
and say, " Argue, speculate." No : he did not go to 
these weaker, these outlying, these marginal forces: 
he went straight and at once to the great central force 
in Nature, — to that engine-like power in man, which 
has power not merely to propel itself, but to start all 
the long train of faculties that are behind it, and de- 
pendent upon it, into motion. He went directly to 
this, I say, and said, '' Love." In all his teachings, he 
never forgot this. It runs through all his words and 
acts, clinging to them, and making itself prominent, 
as a minor cord in music makes itself heard amid the 
rush of contending sounds by its clear quietness, and, 
when the crash of the chorus has ceased, still clings 



LOVE THE SOURCE OF OBEDIENCE. 361 

to the atmospliere, as if unwilling to leave it ; and 
you feel that that clear, quiet strain has dominated by 
its very sweetness over all the other parts. 

When you are at home to-day, and have time to 
digest what I am saying, recall what the Scriptures 
assert touching this matter, and you will see hoiu true 
this remark is. Christ used it everywhere. In the 
case of the poor wicked woman, whose tears fell on 
his feet when he was at dinner with the Pharisee, he 
made it the measure of forgiveness. It was because 
she loved much that she was forgiven much. He 
made it the source of all obedience, as in our text : 
" If ye love me, ye will keep my commandments." 
His prayer for his disciples was, ^' That they might be 
one in love as I and the Father are one." The apos- 
tle John, speaking, remember, by inspiration, made it 
the test of regeneration : " If ye love not your bro- 
ther whom ye have seen, how can ye love God whom 
you have not seen ? " And, as if he would put it so 
that all eyes that are ever lifted in prayer must see it, 
he seized his pen again, and wrote across the very face 
of his exhortation, in letters that glow to-day, and will 
while the Bible is read, with the fervor of his desire, 
'•'•G-od is love.^^ Let us say no more, friends ; for that 
exhausts the resources of statement, and lifts the mind 
to a summit beyond which it cannot mount. 

But, second, I would remark that it is no more true 
that love is inherent and divine in its origin, that it 
is made the central and majestic force in the divine 
economy over man's growth, than that it requires a 
person to elicit it. 

16 



362 LOVE THE SOURCE OF OBEDIENCE. 

Regarded as a sentiment, love is possible in respect 
to principles ; but, regarded as a passion, it is possible 
only touching a person. No one dies for abstract 
truth. Idealize it, connect it with something tan- 
gible, and man will die for it, — not before. Even then 
his self-sacrifice is impelled by regard, necessity, or 
the force of collateral circumstances. A patriot does 
not lay down his life for liberty in the front rank of 
battle with the same feeling which fills the bosom of a 
frontiersman when he dies fighting at the door of his 
log-cabin in an heroic attempt to defend his wife and 
children from the murderous savages. We admire 
beauty ; we reverence virtue ; we praise modesty as 
elements of character : but never until these are em- 
bodied, until the eyes behold them clothed in physical 
form, never until the woman, who, we believe, repre- 
sents these qualities, stands before us, do we love 
them. The qualities we admire ; the woman we love. 
Here, at this point, you see how love educates one in 
worthy directions. The man loves the woman, the 
woman the man, and each the qualities that the other 
represents. Each educates the other into a finer ap- 
preciation, a truer regard, a higher emulation, of the 
virtues each embody ; and thus, as Tennyson sings, 

" They grow together, 
Dwarfed or Godlike, bond or free." 

They grow to be each more like the other, — the 
man more like the woman, she liker to the man. 
In this great love of assimilation going on between 



LOVE THE SOUECE OF OBEDIENCE. 363 

those who truly love, based oa the apprehension of 
embodied virtues, I find the true source of that grati- 
tude in my heart, that God took flesh, and dwelt 
among us. Before Christ came, God was an abstrac- 
tion, a collection of powers and principles, august 
and lovely, known to the reason, the conscience, the 
reverential faculties, but not to the warm, passionate 
side of human nature. Idolatry always had this one 
bright side to it, this one warm ray lying aslant the 
waves that rolled men onward only to wreck. On the 
part of the honest and ignorant devotees, the image 
of wood or stone, however rude, however grotesque, 
embodied God. Their minds were too weak, too 
darkened, too ignorant, to conceive of abstract quali- 
ties. As you cannot make a babe understand any 
thing of the existence and offices of maternity save by 
the clasped form of the mother ; so these poor weak- 
lings — babes in intellect, in moral apprehension — 
knew nothing of God save as they saw him with their 
eyes. They wanted a tangible deity, — one they could 
bring their offerings of fruit and wine to personally, 
and go away feeling that they had ministered to his 
happiness. Alas that any on this earth of ours are 
ignorant to-day that the " Word was made flesh"! 
Alas that they know not of Him who was in all points 
like as they are, save as to their sins ! And may God 
forgive us, who, having this living, breathing, personal 
Saviour revealed to us, love him so little ! What will 
you say when these poor heathen, in their longings 
and struggUngs and gropings for that one thing which 
you have, and will not take, shall condemn you? 



364 LOVE THE SOURCE OF OBEDIENCE. 

Who of you is it, friends, that is meant when the 
Scripture says, " The first shall be last, and the last 
first " ? And yet you would not think, civilized, cul- 
tured, and amiable as you are, to put yourself on the 
level of a heathen before God. 

We have now advanced so far, friends, that we can 
begin to understand the text. '' If ye love me," said 
Christ : observe, he did not say, " If you love the prin- 
ciples I represent, if you believe the truth I teach, if 
you imitate my virtue, you will keep my command- 
ments ; " but he said, " If you love me," me the per- 
son, me the incarnate God, me your Lord and Master, 
me your Elder Brother, " j^ou will keep my command- 
ments." Do not forget this distinction, friends. Do 
not fail to revolve it in 5^our minds as you go down to 
your homes. It is not truths but Him who is the " Truth 
and the Life," you are to love. It is not virtue, but 
Him who embodies it, you are to admire. It is not 
power, but Him who wields it with the heart of a 
lover and the hand of a friend, you are to address in 
prayers. It is not purity, white as a marble statue, 
robed in snowy drapery, you are to admire, but Him, 
the warm, living embodiment of it, whose absolute 
stainlessness is tinted with the warm glow of his hu- 
manity, and whose form is not of chiselled alabaster, 
immobile and rigid, but vibrant with sjanpathy, and 
as sensitive to emotion as a happy mother to the touch 
and cry of her first-born. 

Is it not just at this point that we are able to see 
why religion is so cold and unexpressive in the case 
of almost all of us ? Our philosophy is at fault. We 



LOVE THE SOURCE OF OBEDIENCE. 365 

have put truth in front of Him who revealed it. We 
keep the principles, but lose the person, of Christ. 
We -associate our lives, in their growth, with a few 
great principles, instead of with the one great God. 
We have preached to defend and explain creeds more 
than to present Jesus to the hearer. We have lost 
sight of the sun in our eager chase to capture the sun- 
beams ; and Christ might sa}^, in a voice which should 
have in it the sadness and rebuke of all the ages, 
" You have loved my doctrines more than you have 
me ! " 

Why, whence comes the charm of love, and loving 
life ? Is it not grouped around some person, as fra- 
grance around a flower ? Does it not come from the 
eye, the voice, the face, the form, of the one beloved ? 
Let the loved form be stricken, the voice silent, the 
eye veiled beneath the fringed drapery of the lid, 
nevermore at any call of yours — whether of soft 
whisper or agonizing scream — to open, and where is 
the charm of your love gone ? It is gone out, I an- 
swer, with the 'personal life that expressed it; gone 
with the soul when it passed in its midnight flight ; 
gone as the fragrance goes wdien you shake the leaves 
of the rose from their fastenings ; gone back to God who 
gave it; and "your house is left unto you desolate.'' 
What is domestic life now ? It is what a fountain of 
marble and bronze is when the waters have ceased to 
play ; when the sound of the pattering and splashing 
of the spray is gone, the jets no longer mark their tiny 
curves in the air, and the tinted bubbles no longer 
dance amid the ripples at the base. And what is re- 



386 LOVE THE SOURCE OF OBEDIENCE. 

ligious life when the face and form of Jesus are gone 
from the chamber of jonr heart ; when you no longer 
hear his voice as the voice of a loved one singing in the 
streets ; when jou no longer meet the gaze of his 
eyes that look lovingly into yours as you look lov- 
ingly into them ; when his face lies as the face of one 
stretched on his bier, covered decorously with the 
cold linen of form and ceremon}^, that winding-sheet 
of true piety ; when you see no more his dear form 
walking at early morn and eventide in the garden 
of 3^our soul, greeted and refreshed by the sweetness 
of all your faculties, yielded forth in loving homage 
unto him ? What, I say, is religious life, with no living 
Master and Lord in it, but a cold, silent, embarrassed, 
constrained, and mournful state, as I fear it is too 
often with all of us ? 

You hear people say that the absence of religious 
emotion in our churches and among the upper 
classes is due to their culture and refinement. It is 
not so. The argument proves too much. Love is not 
subject to such modification. Who would say that a 
cultivated person cannot love as intensel}' as a rude 
one ? jMust a young man marry an ignorant girl in 
order to be loved ? Must a girl go to an unedu- 
cated, an undeveloped, a coarse-grained man to find 
an affectionate husband? Do you think that true 
love has one mode of expression on Beacon Hill, and 
another in North Street? Is not the sweet kiss, 
the loving word, the gentle caress, the charitable 
patience, the same in the palace and the cottage ? 
Why, this sublime passion has but one voice, one touch, 



LOVE THE SOURCE OF OBEDIENCE. 867 

the world over. Like some bird, true to its species, 
that inhabits every clime, its food, its plumage, its 
mode of birth and growth, its note, are everywhere the 
same. Oh ! the birds of love fly everywhere. Like 
the ravens that fed the prophet, they are seen only 
by those whom they feed: but every eye that sees 
them coming is lighted with the vision of the same 
bright form ; and every ear that hears them at all 
thrills to the same sweet music. I know well that 
some have the power more than others. There are 
gradations between men in the emotional as truly as 
in the intellectual forces. I have known women who 
liad a talent for loving they were not learned nor 
brilliant women, but they had a wonderful gift to 
love ; and, above all others I have ever met, such 
women are blessed. What a home theirs is ! What 
wives, what mothers, they make ! They are to their 
houses what a lily is to a room : they fill it with 
sweetness without an effort. I never see such a one 
but that I realize the significance of the old Oriental 
beatitude, '* Blessed is the tent that covers a loving 
woman." I recognize this difference, I say: but it is 
a difference in natural endowment, and not of condi- 
tion ; and nowhere should the emotional element be 
found in richer development, nowhere should a 
warm, tender, joyful love for Christ exist in greater 
measure, than among those most favored in culture 
and refinement. The fields that have a southern ex- 
posure should have not only the most, but the sweet- 
est flowers. 

A word now touching the power of love. 



3do love the source of obedience. 

Obedience is the hardest of all things, for those 
naturally inclined not to obey, to do. It is so with a 
child. There is not one of us who did not find it so 
in childhood. And it is therefore necessary to bring 
the strongest possible motive to bear upon the child, 
that he may obey. The strongest part of the dam 
should be that against which the current sets. This 
is true with Christians ; for we are all but little chil- 
dren in our relation to the government of God. 
Therefore it is that Christ points out to us the 
strongest possible motive, " love." 

But you say, " My children love me ; but they do not 
mind me. That motive does not make them obedient. 
I have to re-enforce it by other ones, — as hope of re- 
ward, fear of punishment." Possibly. But observe, 
here is the statement, Christ's own language : you 
see what he says ; and, by analogy and all reasoning, 
the same law should be true between you and your 
children as is true between him and us. But reflect 
a minute. I am given to doubt your statement. Let 
me inquire, have you ever shown your child the 
connection between your love and his disobedience, 
between your heart and his wrong conduct ? Have 
you made the little fellow understand how his be- 
havior hurts you ? Has he seen pain, real pain, or 
anger, in your face, when you caught him in mischief? 
Have you sought to restrain him (pardon the expres- 
sion) as you would a young dog, — by the stamp of 
your foot and the glance of your eye ? or as a parent 
should, — by moral education ? Some people appeal 
more to brute fear in their children than they do to 



LOVE THE SOUECE OF OBEDIENCE. 369 

human love. Never will I believe, that when a child 
is able to understand, has been taught to perceive 
the relation between love and obedience, he will not 
yield himself a willing captive to a yoke so easy and 
a burden so light : at least, I found it so. It was the 
only thing that ever ruled me, if I ever was ruled at 
all. 

I know this, and so do you, that love is the strongest 
passion known to mortals. It is stronger than hate, 
that sleuthhound of devilishness, which no distance 
tires, no threat intimidates ; for death checks its crj^, 
and puts a stop to the chase. Leaving the bloody 
body on the sand, it returns content to its kennel. 
But love is not checked, is not weakened, by death. 
Amid its bereavement it sings like a bird that awakes 
in the night, and sends its clear song fearlessly out 
into the darkness. I have seen a young wife and 
mother stand above the mound beneath which slept 
both husband and child. In one hand she held a bud, 
in the other a broken bough. She planted the rose 
at the head, and the shrub at the foot, of the grave. 
In a year, another coffin was lowered to the side of 
the two, and her form slept by those she loved. But 
the bud grew until it became a bush, covered with 
flowers, and the branch became a tree ; and, as I 
looked at the two, I said, " These are the symbols of 
human love : the one struck its roots into the soil of 
death, and was grown on what men call its triumphs ; 
the other has added to its life a thousand times, and 
from an emblem of grief has been changed by the 

16* 



370 LOVE THE SOURCE OF OBEDIENCE. 

Dourisliment of the grave into the emblem of joy." 
There is no power, I say, like love. It will carry 
heavier burdens, bear more yokes, endure more buf- 
feting, do more service, face more perils, live on under 
the sense of the deepest shame, beyond any other 
emotion that the heart of man is able to feel. Its face, 
as I picture it, is like the face of an angel, born from 
all eternity to be exalted, — born for a throne, for 
power, for principality ; a face bearing in all its linea- 
ments the image of the Faultless ; a face in which 
sweetness and majesty contend as the hues of morn- 
ing contend at dawn for possession of the eastern sky, 
until they mingle and blend, making by their union 
the perfect light of the full day : and no power, no, 
not even sin itself, can so mar its features, that traces 
of its original and celestial beauty may not be seen 
amid the wreck and ruin of its once glorious counte- 
nance. Go to the dungeon ; and through the grated 
door its voice comes forth, saying, " Behold ! walls of 
stone cannot compress me ; fetter and bar cannot bind 
me ; chill and dampness cannot stop the warm current 
of my veins." Go to the stake ; and, when you thought 
to hear only the scream of agony, you see an eye lighted 
with the assurance of hope, and catch the voice of 
song cleaving the flame. Go to the rack, — to those 
chambers of torture in which cunning invention is 
taxed to supply the forces of cruelty, — and hear it ex- 
claim, while bar and cord, pulley and pincer, are being 
plied, '' You can tear and rend this body limb from 
limb, and joint from joint : but me you cannot rend ; 



LOVE THE SOUECE OF OBEDIENCE. 371 

me you cannot destroy. You can batter down the 
door ; you can level the walls of my habitation : but I, 
I shall fly forth at death into the larger liberty, the 
larger life, of my native skies." 

This, friends, is the passion to which Christ ap- 
pealed when pointing out to his disciples the great 
motive of obedience. • This is that sublime, inde- 
structible passion, that great gulf-stream of influence, 
which flows through the frozen ocean of our lives, 
bringing summer and song and the fragrance of all the 
tropics in its train. Upon islands belted with ice, along 
shores white with frozen surf, against those huge 
bulks, those embodiments of winter lifting their glis- 
tening peaks like mountains above the waves, yet 
reaching down into the depths deeper than their sum- 
mits are borne aloft, — against all that is icy and cold 
and petrified in our hearts, I invoke the current of 
this celestial passion to flow. Oh, pour upon us, thou 
mighty river, whose source is hidden in the far-off 
spiritual tropics ! - — pour upon us the full tide of thy 
latent and immeasurable heat, until our hearts are 
melted and mingled in thy fervid stream. Come 
nearer to us, thou stream of God ! make short our 
winters, and prolong our summers ; breathe thy moist 
warmth into our atmosphere, until the air is sweet 
and musical with scent of flowers, and voice of tune- 
ful birds. 

I put the Lord in his own proper person before you. 
He speaks : the mystery is no longer mysterious. My 
hand has found the clew that leads me from the 



372 LOVE THE SOUECE OF OBEDIENCE. 

labyrinth of vain endeavor ; light breaks on the eyes 
that groped so long in darkness : for he says to me, to 
you, to all, " If ye love me, ye will keep my com- 
mandments." 



:j(;40 



